Some other points and recommendations to consider: - Since you have the bays, get the controller to drive them, regardless. They will have many uses, some of which below. A 4-port controller would allow you enough ports for both the two empty hotswap bays, plus the dual 2.5" carrier. Note there are 4-in-1 5.25" versions of those, too.
- Don't be afraid to dike out the optical drive, either for case space or available ports. Almost anything else is a better tradeoff: CF to ATA, or ATA laptop disks, can fit anywhere in the case as rpool. USB sticks are fine (even preferable) for intalls, and it sounds like the drive is located awkwardly for use as a burner anyway. Put the drive in an external USB case if you want, or leave it in the case connected via a USB bridge internally. - If you decide to mirror with bigger drives (even if next time around, rather than immediately), you can reduce the risk of the single failure since you have extra bays: attach the first bigger disk as a third mirror, then replace the second disk with a bigger one, then remove the last smaller one. Keep a free slot for this. - Since you have 7x 400, you might as well use them. Stick with your mirrors, adding a third set plus a hotspare. Or, if you can be bothered spending the time to rearrange, raidz2 for some extra space (defer the next upgrade longer, keep more snapshots until then). - 7x 400 will make good rolling backup media, too, in your spare hotswap bay(s). - I've had mixed results from thumb drives, including corruption. You can always mirror those, too; I consider it mandatory if booting. Beware that moving them to different usb ports can currently cause boot failures. Device selection seems to be important, but there's little way to know beforehand. -- Dan.
pgpfmJAdqABvx.pgp
Description: PGP signature
_______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
