I'd be careful about raidz unless you have either: 1 - automatic notification of failure set up using fmadm
2 - at least one hot spare Because raidz is parity-based (it does some math-magic to give you redundancy), replacing a disk that's failed can take a very long time compared to mirror resilvering (the zfs term for rebuilding redundancy). You can get a nice 1000gb SATA drive on newegg or a similar site for about $90 - well worth the extra money ($120) for the convenience of mirroring. Mirrors are probably also faster for any kind of video playback (like the video projects you mention). I use raidz2 with 2 hot spares at my company, yes, but only for data warehousing. User data (windows home dirs) I put on mirrors. On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 10:00 PM, Harry Putnam <rea...@newsguy.com> wrote: > Bob Friesenhahn <bfrie...@simple.dallas.tx.us> writes: > >> On Thu, 19 Mar 2009, Harry Putnam wrote: >>> I've created a zpool in raidz1 configuration with: >>> >>> zpool create zbk raidz1 c3d0 c4d0 c4d1 >> >> This is not a very useful configuration. With this number of disks, >> it is best to use two of them to build a mirror, and save the other >> disk for something else (e.g. to build a mirrored root pool). Mirrors >> perform better, are more fault tolerant, and are easier to administer. > > Ok, I was going by comments on a site called Simons' blog that tells > you how to set things up with zfs. Of course it is just one guys > opinion. > > Let me just say a couple of words about my intended usage. > > I'm building a home NAS server for my home lan using opensolaris and > zfs. > > I will be backing up 4 Windows XP boxes, 2 of which are used primarily > for processing video. And eventully I'd be storing finished video > projects too. Often these projects run to 50gb or so. But I don't do > so many. Maybe 9-12 in a yr. > > So I'd want to put ghosted images of each machine OS (several apiece) > and running backups (incremental) that would stretch back a few weeks. > And the projects mentioned above. As well as what is becoming quite a > large photo collection. > > Also 2 linux boxes will getting backed up there. > > I thought the kind of redundancy offered by raidz1 would be enough for > my needs and would allow me to get a little more storage room out of > my disks than mirrored setup. > > I suspect as well, that the access times in raidz1 or mirrored would > be vastly higher than what the low end consumer grade NASs that are > availabe offer. > > I did try one out.. a WD Worldbook (about $200 US) that advertises > gigabit access but in use cannot even come close to what a 10/100 > connect can handle. > > So raidz1 would probably be adequate for me... I wouldn't be putting > it to the test like a commercial operation might. > > You mentioned admistration was a bigger problem with raidz1, can you > be more specific there?... I have really know idea what to expect in > that regard with either technique. > >> With five disks, raidz1 becomes useful. > > The three 500gb I have now are all one brand and model number and IDE ata. > If I were to expand to 5, those 2 would need to be sata or else I'd > also need to add a PCI IDE controller. > > With that in mind would it be problematic to make up the 5 by adding 2 > sata 500gb to the mix? > > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss > _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
