multiple ZFS zpool on one array

[microguy]

Hi,
I'm planning to build a new home server : Hp proliant N54L + 4x 2To HDD

Is there a way to have multiple Zpool on a single array of 4 HDD

So, I can have 2 zpool : 1 zpool with 4 disks in RAIDZ1 and 1 zpool with the same 4 disks in RAIDZ2.

I need these in order to improve capacity as some file doesn't need so much HDD redundancy.

thanks

Guy

 

[farscapesg1]

I'm sure others can answer more technically than I can, but I'm pretty sure that once a disk is assigned to a pool, you can't assign it to another. You can create multiple shares/folders/iscsi targets on a single pool, but I don't think you can do what you are looking for...

 

[metril]

@OP

You can. It isn't recommended, but you can.

You will need to create the ZFS using partitions rather than the whole disks themselves. There's a lot of command line foo involved, so no easy method that I remember.

This will hurt your read/write performance.

 

[microguy]

OK, and I think if a HDD fail, it will be a pain to change it?
Because of the partionning that maybe I need to do before.

 

[danswartz]

Highly unrecommended!

 

[young_einstein]

I need these in order to improve capacity as some file doesn't need so much HDD redundancy.

There really is no ideal solution to this problem, but you might want to look at zfs copies as a potential option.

https://blogs.oracle.com/relling/entry/zfs_copies_and_data_protection

Basically, setup your pool as raidz (in order to maximise available space), but then you can specify particular file systems to keep two (or more) copies of their data, which is spread out across the disks in order to increase redundancy.

Of course that won't help you if you happen to lose the entire pool for some reason, but that's why we always keep backups of things .... right?