I'm just looking for some quick critique or ideas on my file server setup.
Right now I have a Dell T110ii with a Xeon and 32GB RAM running with a small SSD for the boot drive and 4x 4TB WD Red drives in ZFS mirrors on FreeBSD as a file server. I have three sets of backup drives, a 2TB 2.5" and a 5TB 3.5" external USB3 drives. I have cron scripts running RSYNC, a daily standard RSYNC and a once a week bit comparison RSYNC to these external drives. The 2TB drives store all my irreplacable documents, photos, etc, and the 5TB drives store my media stuff like the CD collection, movies, etc. I'm using just a tad over half the storage capacity in the server. I used to keep the backup drives in a safe, but am going to start keeping the USB drives at work as that should provide better protection. The system has been reliable to date. I have two things that are nipping at me.
1. I'm not sure the mirror setup was the best plan, I feel like I should have gone to a RAIDz2 setup instead as it provides a little better data protection. Is it worth it at this point to try and go through the hassle of changing the array? I would have to have a reliable destination to move the data to and back.
2. I'm concerned my backup strategy is inadequate, with these single USB drives. If there's any failure in the drive during restoration, I'm in trouble. That's why I have three backups in rotation I guess, but it still makes me nervous. What other things should I consider for backup, or am I just being paranoid? Eventually, when I buy another house, I'd like to have a shop with a separate backup server in it--but I'm not sure if that is any good if the backup server is literally sitting two inches from the primary server. I have a Dell T20 collecting dust right now, but it's not very well suited to file server duties. I've considered things like trying to come up with an external drive mirror, or just changing my backup drives to 8TB externals so I can use snapshops instead of RSYNC, but that doesn't alleviate the single disk issue.
Too much paranoia? Stick with my current setup until it needs an upgrade? I've been doing a lot more photography lately, and going through my older photography and there's a lot of original content that can't be replicated. While it would be a huge pain in the rear, the media stuff isn't a big deal--and half the time I just use a streaming service anyway.
Right now I have a Dell T110ii with a Xeon and 32GB RAM running with a small SSD for the boot drive and 4x 4TB WD Red drives in ZFS mirrors on FreeBSD as a file server. I have three sets of backup drives, a 2TB 2.5" and a 5TB 3.5" external USB3 drives. I have cron scripts running RSYNC, a daily standard RSYNC and a once a week bit comparison RSYNC to these external drives. The 2TB drives store all my irreplacable documents, photos, etc, and the 5TB drives store my media stuff like the CD collection, movies, etc. I'm using just a tad over half the storage capacity in the server. I used to keep the backup drives in a safe, but am going to start keeping the USB drives at work as that should provide better protection. The system has been reliable to date. I have two things that are nipping at me.
1. I'm not sure the mirror setup was the best plan, I feel like I should have gone to a RAIDz2 setup instead as it provides a little better data protection. Is it worth it at this point to try and go through the hassle of changing the array? I would have to have a reliable destination to move the data to and back.
2. I'm concerned my backup strategy is inadequate, with these single USB drives. If there's any failure in the drive during restoration, I'm in trouble. That's why I have three backups in rotation I guess, but it still makes me nervous. What other things should I consider for backup, or am I just being paranoid? Eventually, when I buy another house, I'd like to have a shop with a separate backup server in it--but I'm not sure if that is any good if the backup server is literally sitting two inches from the primary server. I have a Dell T20 collecting dust right now, but it's not very well suited to file server duties. I've considered things like trying to come up with an external drive mirror, or just changing my backup drives to 8TB externals so I can use snapshops instead of RSYNC, but that doesn't alleviate the single disk issue.
Too much paranoia? Stick with my current setup until it needs an upgrade? I've been doing a lot more photography lately, and going through my older photography and there's a lot of original content that can't be replicated. While it would be a huge pain in the rear, the media stuff isn't a big deal--and half the time I just use a streaming service anyway.