[OpenIndiana-discuss] ZFS 0+1 across disparate drives

[Mehmet Erol Sanliturk]

On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 2:55 PM Michelle <michelle at msknight.com> wrote:

> I'm trying to achieve a resilient way of bringing together all my older
> drives for a backup solution using scraps of whatever I can get my
> hands on.
>
> I have closing on 12TB of data so even the 10 won't be enough to back
> everything up, but this is as much for the exercise of doing it, as
> achieving anything solid. It won't be under pressure, but I'd rather
> push the envelope and see what I can do.
>
> So how would the command go?
>
> zpool create tank raidz mirror drive1 drive2 mirror drive3 drive4
> drive5
>
> ...which is where I come unstuck with the 2TB drive in the mix.
>
>
>




A few days ago I lost many weeks of work because my drive #1 / 3 died , not
synchronized into  #2 / 3 and  #3 / 3 .
This made the computer unbootable .
I replaced the failed disk and synchronized it  with #2 .
The disk #3 failed and made the computer unbootable .
I replaced that disk and synchronized it  with #2 .

The #1 disk was new but bought  approximately 5 year ago .

You are saying your disks are older .

One "safe" but slow choice would be the following .

Use external USB docks for each of your disks and make their file systems
compatible
with your computer ( if your disks have other file systems ) .

With your synchronization shell scripts (1) mount  (2) rsync (3) un_mount
your drives
by using cron or ( manually which this option is not a good choice ) .

If any one of your disks fails , it will not affect your computer .
This will be slow but without any other harm .


The most suitable additional action may be to backup your data to external
disks
regularly . These disks will not be continuously connected to the computer
and will not be affected  by electricity harmful effects .



OR

You may use another computer ( such as a single board computer ) as an NFS
server
( or a NAS if one is available to you ) , and use your drives in that
server .
Then synchronize your drives from your computer . If any disk fails , it
only affects the server
but your computer continues to work without affection .



Mehmet Erol Sanliturk











>
> On Wed, 2021-12-01 at 11:17 +0000, James wrote:
> > On 01/12/2021 08:31, Michelle wrote:
> > > Say I was to put a 2tb, three 4tb and a 6tb together (a 2 and two 4
> > > would make 10 and the other 4 and the 6 would also make 10)
> > >
> > > Would that be possible with ZFS now?
> >
> > I think it has always been possible, ask is is sensible?  Try it, if
> > you
> > have nothing to loose.  The problem is if one drive fails is takes
> > out
> > all of one side of the mirror.
> >
> > Why not use 2 separate 4TB mirrors?  4&4 = 4, 4&6 = 4, total 8.  You
> > loose the 2TB drive completely but (guessing) it is the slowest and
> > oldest.  You ignore 2TB of the 6.
> >
> > You don't say what you are trying to achieve but it's unlikely you
> > have
> > the full 8TB of data, it is unlikely it can't be split.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org
> > https://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
>
>
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