What RAID Level?

[GooseNZ]

Hi Guys and Gals,
Quick question, and sorry if it has been asked before, but can someone please tell me what RAID level I am running on my FreeNAS?

I have looked through all the graphical representations I can find of the raid array diagrams, but none I can see fit what I have.

My question is: what do I have here, and what level of protection is it giving me?

My volume status tab in the gui says
"ada2p2" under STRIPED
and
"ada1p2" and "ada0p2" under MIRROR-O

Here is the output from 'zpool status'

Code:

Shell
[root@freenas ~]# zpool status                                                                                                    
  pool: Volume1                                                                                                                    
state: ONLINE                                                                                                                    
  scan: scrub repaired 0 in 15h56m with 0 errors on Sun Jul 24 15:56:14 2016                                                      
config:                                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                  
        NAME                                            STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM                                                
        Volume1                                         ONLINE       0     0     0                                                
          mirror-0                                      ONLINE       0     0     0                                                
            gptid/346dc4ed-3864-11e5-8e4a-001a6b468a87  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                
            gptid/d613ceb7-3873-11e5-8e4a-001a6b468a87  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                
          gptid/0b339e93-8338-11e5-92fa-001a6b468a87    ONLINE       0     0     0                                                
                                                                                                                                  
errors: No known data errors                                                                                                      
                                                                                                                                  
  pool: freenas-boot                                                                                                              
state: ONLINE                                                                                                                    
  scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0h29m with 0 errors on Sun Jul 31 04:14:28 2016                                                        
config:                                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                  
        NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM                                                                                    
        freenas-boot  ONLINE       0     0     0                                                                                  
          da0p2     ONLINE       0     0     0                                                                                    
                                                                                                                                  
errors: No known data errors                                                                                                      
[root@freenas ~]#

 

[GooseNZ]

I have attached a screenshot of the console output, because it seems to have lost the formatting in the post.

 

[anodos]

Hi Guys and Gals,
Quick question, and sorry if it has been asked before, but can someone please tell me what raid level i am running on my freenas?

I have looked through all the graphical representations I can find of the raid array diagrams, but none I can see fit what I have.

My question is: what do I have here, and what level of protection is it giving me?

My volume status tab in the gui says
"ada2p2" under STRIPED
and
"ada1p2" and "ada0p2" under MIRROR-O

Here is the output from 'zpool status'

Shell
[root@freenas ~]# zpool status
pool: Volume1
state: ONLINE
scan: scrub repaired 0 in 15h56m with 0 errors on Sun Jul 24 15:56:14 2016
config:

NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
Volume1 ONLINE 0 0 0
mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0
gptid/346dc4ed-3864-11e5-8e4a-001a6b468a87 ONLINE 0 0 0
gptid/d613ceb7-3873-11e5-8e4a-001a6b468a87 ONLINE 0 0 0
gptid/0b339e93-8338-11e5-92fa-001a6b468a87 ONLINE 0 0 0

errors: No known data errors

pool: freenas-boot
state: ONLINE
scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0h29m with 0 errors on Sun Jul 31 04:14:28 2016
config:

NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
freenas-boot ONLINE 0 0 0
da0p2 ONLINE 0 0 0

errors: No known data errors
[root@freenas ~]#

You have three disks. 1 & 2 are mirroring each other. 3 is striped. This means that if 3 fails you will lose all data in your pool. I believe the proper way of fixing this is to destroy your zpool and rebuild with an appropriate level of redundancy.

 

[GooseNZ]

Thank you for your quick reply.
What, ideally should I be doing to lessen the risk of data loss in the event #3 fails? Do I need to change #3 into another mirror? it doesn't seem ideal how I have it at the moment.

 

[anodos]

Thank you for your quick reply.
What, ideally should I be doing to lessen the risk of data loss in the event #3 fails? Do I need to change #3 into another mirror? it doesn't seem ideal how I have it at the moment.

You are correct in thinking it is not ideal. I do not believe that the webgui provides a way to convert the single-disk vdev into a mirrored vdev. If this is the case, then the best course of action is to back up your data and rebuild the pool as either 3-disk RAIDZ1, or as mirrors (adding a fourth disk), or as 4+disk RAIDZ2.

 

[GooseNZ]

Thanks again.

I am about to build a new box but was hoping to just move the disks across but perhaps I might have to look at a new set of disks and copy them across to a new volume.

Or, is there any benefit over 2 mirrored, and 2 striped drives? Does that offer redundancy then? (Like if I stripe another disk) I know striping helps Speed things up with the data across multiple disks, would this be a good idea given that it is mainly used for streaming media? Plex etc.

Main thing is, would adding a second striped disk give me better protection too? I guess my limited understanding is trying to tell me to mirror that striped drive.

 

[GooseNZ]

Oh wait I see what you are saying. I will have a look at what raid level suits my needs out of what you listed, based on my current usage, what do you reckon I should be leaning toward migrating to?

 

[anodos]

Oh wait I see what you are saying. I will have a look at what raid level suits my needs out of what you listed, based on my current usage, what do you reckon I should be leaning toward migrating to?

I don't know what your use case is, but I'd start with "anything but striped". Most home users seem to use RAIDZ2, but you'll need at least 4 disks for this.

 

[HoneyBadger]

I guess my limited understanding is trying to tell me to mirror that striped drive.

Bingo. There is an option to convert a stripe to a mirror, and it's been done in the past. However it does require CLI use versus pure GUI, so the official stance for the best support going forward is "back up your data and rebuild the pool."

That said, you could convert the stripe to mirror for now until you get a chance to backup and restore.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-turn-an-existing-stripe-into-a-mirror.27557/

 

[GooseNZ]

Perfect thanks. I will do some research into that.

I'm just storing my family photos and running plex server for Tv shows and movies and music.

Nothing too major but would hate to lose it all.

Thanks a lot for your advice. I was always not quite sure it was set up how it should be, now I am glad I finally got round to asking on the forums, cause it's definitely not right.

I think when I added the third drive I was just stoked that one of the options gave me a bit more storage but I didn't think of the implications of that.

Anyway, thanks so much for the advice. I look forward to asking many more stupid questions sometime in the future :)

 

[GooseNZ]

Bingo. There is an option to convert a stripe to a mirror, and it's been done in the past. However it does require CLI use versus pure GUI, so the official stance for the best support going forward is "back up your data and rebuild the pool."

That said, you could convert the stripe to mirror for now until you get a chance to backup and restore.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-turn-an-existing-stripe-into-a-mirror.27557/

Oh this is great news.

I might snap up a cheap drive and do this, and turn it into a 4 disk while I get the cash together for a new system then rebuild it from there.

Will wait till I get some time to concentrate on it though, however it doesn't seem too complicated, which I like when it comes to Cli.

Many thanks.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

If you are successful in your pool modifications using the CLI, consider exporting and reimporting the pool to let the GUI know about the changes.

Before doing anything, make sure your backups are up to date.

 

[Stux]

At the moment you have no redundancy.

If you can add a 4th drive, then you should add it as a mirror of your 3rd drive.

Later you can change your zpools shape if you want, but at least adding the fourth drive will restore redundancy.