[OpenIndiana-discuss] Gradually expanding zpool size

[Jan Owoc]

Hi Mark,

On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Mark Creamer <whitetr6 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm considering putting together a storage server running OI and I'm
> wondering about whether I should have to fill all the slots from the start
> if I don't need that much storage yet.

There are certain things you can do, and others you can't (yet) with ZFS.

> For example, if I have 8 1TB drives and 4 empty slots to start with, and I
> configure the zpool as RAIDZ2, and then later if I need the other 4 drives,
> can I add them to the same zpool without having to rebuild from scratch?

This slideshow was created for FreeNAS, but the things it discusses
(like drive configurations) are equally applicable to ZFS on
OpenIndiana:
http://forums.freenas.org/threads/slideshow-explaining-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

If after watching the presentation you still have questions, feel free
to post a follow-up.

Cheers,
Jan