On 10 December 2014 at 13:06, Russell Coker <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Dec 2014, Toby Corkindale <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Let's say I want to have 2TB of storage. In that case, I'd purchase
>> two 2TB drives, mirror them in btrfs, done.[1]
>>   mkfs.btrfs -m raid1 -d raid1 /dev/disk/by-id/foo1 /dev/disk/by-id/foo2
>
> Actually buy at least 3TB disks.  The MSY prices are $92 and $123
[snip]

I was really just using the size as an arbitrary amount for example's
sake. I haven't looked recently to see what sort of sizes are good
value, but I would expect people using this advice to do so, yes.

>> Time goes by, the amount of data I'm collecting ramps up hugely, I
>> need more space.
>> So, I'd buy a couple of 4TB drives, and add them to the pool and then
>> perhaps rebalance:
>>   btrfs device add /dev/disk/by-id/foo3 /mnt
>>   btrfs device add /dev/disk/by-id/foo4 /mnt
>>   btrfs balance start /mnt
>>
>> Later, I'd remove the original drives as they were getting old, and
>> probably look at replacing them with bigger drives.
>>   btrfs device delete /dev/disk/by-id/foo1 /mnt
>>   btrfs device delete /dev/disk/by-id/foo2 /mnt
>
> Note that "btrfs replace" is MUCH faster than a balance or delete operation.

Thanks Russell, that's interesting to know. Might not be an option for
someone if they only have four or five ports, but sounds good if you
do have a spare.

> Another possibility is to use an old PC with a few disks in a RAID-5 or RAID-6
> array for local backup.  I've been considering getting a large tower PC filled
> with old disks (~1TB capacity) in a BTRFS RAID-5 configuration for local
> backup.  The noise and heat of all the disks wouldn't matter as I'd only turn
> it on when doing a backup.

You start getting into higher failure rates there -- old drives, lots
of them, frequently getting spun up and down..
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