ZFS raidz2 configuration

[els]

Hi,

I've been doing a bit research on ZFS and I think I want to go with DIY NAS. I'm still not sure about the ZFS raidz2 configuration. I planned on getting four 3TB hard drives and utilize Chenbro 4 hot-swappable bays and AMD E350 however it seems raidz2 works better with 5 or 6 drives. I still would like to stick with AMD E350 for its low power consumption since it is going to be used in home.

If 5 or 6 drives configuration is preferrable for raidz2 I'd have a hard time finding a case with four 5.25 bays (and can be configured with a mini itx motherboard). I can find two 3 hot-swappable cages (each one would take up 2 5.25 bays) so that would give me 6 hot-swappable bays.

Also, is it recommended to have 1 vdev or 2 vdevs in a zpool?

Appreciate any feedback. Thanks.

Ethan

 

[matthewowen01]

your car will run better on premium gas, but it will also run just fine on regular. a raidz2 of 4 drives runs great, i have one. you're capped at your NIC with gigabit, you won't notice.

1 vdev is better for small scale projects, the more vdevs you have, the more disks you need to sacrifice for redundancy. if you want 2 disks of redundancy (raidz2, i don't recommend raidz) you need 2 extra drives per vdev. so to create a 2 vdev raidz2 pool, you need a minimum of 8 drives.

 

[els]

So if I went with four 3TB hard drives and raidz2 configuration the net space would be about 6TB?

If I went with a dual Intel NIC for link aggregation would four drives raidz2 still work?

I plan to go with 8GB ram as recommended for ZFS.

 

[matthewowen01]

So if I went with four 3TB hard drives and raidz2 configuration the net space would be about 6TB?

yes, well 5.4 TB (1000 vs 1024)

If I went with a dual Intel NIC for link aggregation would four drives raidz2 still work?

i don't see why not.

I plan to go with 8GB ram as recommended for ZFS.

sounds good.

 

[els]

Thanks. Any recommendations on 3TB hard drives? I see mixed reviews with "green" drives and issues with so-called 4K drives. Any gotchas?

 

[matthewowen01]

the magic smoke left one of my 1.5 TB green's today, but i do have 12 of them.

 

[TwinDaddyKev]

The Chenbro 4 hot-swappable bays is really nice. I have one with an AMD E350 motherboard with 8GB RAM. Currently running 4x1TB WD Black drives. I am planning on upgrading to 3TB WD drives. It runs like a tank.

 

[Durkatlon]

Love the case, I have 4 of them! :D I believe Fractal Designs makes a Mini-ITX case with 6 or 7 slots for 5.25" devices. You might want to look into that one.