Hey all
So I'm building up another NAS and I was hoping someone could help with a recommendation of a software RAID implementation
At the moment, I'm running 2 HP N40L Micro-Servers with each running 4x2TB, using Snapraid for parity
Before, When I had just the one Micro-server, I was running 4x2TB in RAIDz1, and I loved it, but I was struggling with FreeBSD, which was my host OS, as I was really new to *nix in general, especially to the server world
I eventually got frustrated with the OS, and decided to move to Ubuntu, and exported the RAIDz array to Ubuntu, which worked very well
I eventually ran into an odd issue, when 2 of the drives began to fail due to bad sectors, I couldn't replaced the drive that I had removed with the new drive
When I eventually came right, and rebuilt the 2 new drives, but every time I rebooted the server, the 2 drives would resilver
So I became annoyed and opted for something different, and thought the WD greens would prefer being able to spin down during unused periods
So I went for Snapraid, but haven't enjoyed it at all, but it has been working
Anyway, that was a little off topic
So, my new system:
CPU: AMD A4 5300 [I'm considering the 5400k, but I don't think the 200MHz is worth the price bump]
Motherboard: ASrock FM2A85X Extreme4-M ATX
RAM: 2x4GB DDR1333
PSU: Gigabyte GT 850W
HDD: 4x3TB WD RED
The file server will be mostly used to stream files, and store backups of software and what not, and I would really like to move back to RAID5 again.
What I'm hoping to do this time around to expand my array as I require more space, as now I have a case that has enough space, and it would suit my budget better to be able to just buy an extra drive when space become low
I may eventually increase the array to 7 drives in total
I would love to use ZFS again, but you can't expand an array, and the issues I had on ubuntu makes me nervous (Although, I would probably move to another OS if I were), but the features and simplicity of use from ZFS was A+
Snapshot raid seemed like a good idea for WD greens, as I don't think they liked the 24/7 operations, lol
So that leaves me with MDADM
I've looked into it basically, and it seems it does what I'm looking for, but there seem to be a fair amount of variables that I need to look at, it's definitely more complex than setting up a ZFS array
Seeing that this array may exceed 16TB, what would the best filesystem to use? It seems the ext4 has limitations above 16TB, but read there was a 64bit extension for ext4 the allows for 16+TB or something like that, or what would be a better file system?
How does the file system respond to an array being grown? I've read that people generally tweak the file system for the array, when expanding it, can the setting be modified? Or how does the filesystem respond to the increase in array size?
It seems to me that MDADM can do what I would like, with some effort on the original setup
I was kind of considering ZFS, and creating a 2nd 3x3TB raidz1 vdev to add to the pool if I needed more space in the future, but I'm note sure, but it would be an option
So I'm building up another NAS and I was hoping someone could help with a recommendation of a software RAID implementation
At the moment, I'm running 2 HP N40L Micro-Servers with each running 4x2TB, using Snapraid for parity
Before, When I had just the one Micro-server, I was running 4x2TB in RAIDz1, and I loved it, but I was struggling with FreeBSD, which was my host OS, as I was really new to *nix in general, especially to the server world
I eventually got frustrated with the OS, and decided to move to Ubuntu, and exported the RAIDz array to Ubuntu, which worked very well
I eventually ran into an odd issue, when 2 of the drives began to fail due to bad sectors, I couldn't replaced the drive that I had removed with the new drive
When I eventually came right, and rebuilt the 2 new drives, but every time I rebooted the server, the 2 drives would resilver
So I became annoyed and opted for something different, and thought the WD greens would prefer being able to spin down during unused periods
So I went for Snapraid, but haven't enjoyed it at all, but it has been working
Anyway, that was a little off topic
So, my new system:
CPU: AMD A4 5300 [I'm considering the 5400k, but I don't think the 200MHz is worth the price bump]
Motherboard: ASrock FM2A85X Extreme4-M ATX
RAM: 2x4GB DDR1333
PSU: Gigabyte GT 850W
HDD: 4x3TB WD RED
The file server will be mostly used to stream files, and store backups of software and what not, and I would really like to move back to RAID5 again.
What I'm hoping to do this time around to expand my array as I require more space, as now I have a case that has enough space, and it would suit my budget better to be able to just buy an extra drive when space become low
I may eventually increase the array to 7 drives in total
I would love to use ZFS again, but you can't expand an array, and the issues I had on ubuntu makes me nervous (Although, I would probably move to another OS if I were), but the features and simplicity of use from ZFS was A+
Snapshot raid seemed like a good idea for WD greens, as I don't think they liked the 24/7 operations, lol
So that leaves me with MDADM
I've looked into it basically, and it seems it does what I'm looking for, but there seem to be a fair amount of variables that I need to look at, it's definitely more complex than setting up a ZFS array
Seeing that this array may exceed 16TB, what would the best filesystem to use? It seems the ext4 has limitations above 16TB, but read there was a 64bit extension for ext4 the allows for 16+TB or something like that, or what would be a better file system?
How does the file system respond to an array being grown? I've read that people generally tweak the file system for the array, when expanding it, can the setting be modified? Or how does the filesystem respond to the increase in array size?
It seems to me that MDADM can do what I would like, with some effort on the original setup
I was kind of considering ZFS, and creating a 2nd 3x3TB raidz1 vdev to add to the pool if I needed more space in the future, but I'm note sure, but it would be an option