Using HDD for FreeNas

[Harilal K M]

I am new to freeNAS. I have few doubts about using HDD .

I would like use RAIDZ in ZFS . Is it possible to upgrade my HDD in future. For example, if i use 3 x 120GB HDD now and later on i upgrade to 500GB will it work?

If i upgrade one by one monthly , will it be converted to 500Gb after i upgraded all the three HDD's?

 

[ian351c]

Yes, that will work.

 

[L]

In freenas you can replace drives individually with bigger drives..

 

[diedrichg]

...but you can't add new drives to the pool, so larger drives are your best option.

 

[danb35]

@diedrichg, I'm sure you meant that you can't safely add single drives to a pool. You certainly can add drives; they just need to be in groups if you want to retain redundancy.

@Harilal K M, FreeNAS is a system that demands familiarity with the documentation and hardware requirements. I'd suggest you start with cyberjock's powerpoint and hardware recommendations.

 

[diedrichg]

Yes

 

[Harilal K M]

@danb35 Actually am trying to familiar with the freenas system before building it.I tried the video tutorials from the site and also some user guides. I don't have much money to buy larger HDDS. So am planning to build one with 4x120GB HDD with RAIDZ. And later replace one by one with a bigger drive. My doubt is it possible to replace it with bigger disk rather than adding a new one? But before purchasing the hardware i need to make sure it will work. Otherwise it will waste of money and time. In my experience, if you solely rely on documentation without consulting the experienced guys in forum will be foolish. I will be extremely thankful if you could guys can help me out.

 

[SweetAndLow]

I think FreeNAS is going to be overkill for you. You are taking about building a computer that has 360gig of storage. In this day and age you can get that much storage for $40. The complexity of the system is going to out weigh the benefits. You can probably buy a single 4TB drive for less than your build. Also if you can't afford larger drives I suspect you can't afford the right server parts to run FreeNAS. This is just food for thought and I want to help you make the best decision.

 

[Harilal K M]

@SweetAndLow I know it's something overkill for me. I had a 1TB WD external hDD with . IT's enough for my purpose. But the problem is the data redundancy. I already did data recovery for 3 times in the last 2 years. So i need something that is realiable. And more over there is a joy in building a system like this than buying a built in NAS or a storage device :) .

 

[danb35]

So am planning to build one with 4x120GB HDD with RAIDZ. And later replace one by one with a bigger drive. My doubt is it possible to replace it with bigger disk rather than adding a new one?

The short answer is yes, this is possible. Is the rest of your planned build up to FreeNAS' requirements, though? It requires 8 GB RAM as a minimum, and if you're concerned about your data's integrity that should be ECC RAM. You need to consider the whole package.