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>>Expanding a RAID vdev is not possible, instead the recommendation is to waste 50% of storage for a pool of mirrored devices to get the same protection as a RA
by luke0016 8y ago
>>Expanding a RAID vdev is not possible, instead the recommendation is to waste 50% of storage for a pool of mirrored devices to get the same protection as a RAID1 of two drives, which isn't much for some people
>Or make a new vdev. It takes a bit of planning, but it's not some massive hurdle.
I had a 3 disk, 6TB RAIDZ (3x 3TB drives). I bought a fourth 3TB disk when I started running low on space, not knowing that this limitation existed. I ended up using an intermediate, 8TB external drive to copy data off, re-create the RAIDZ with 4 disks, and then copy the data back.
This sucked. What should I have done instead?
- Mister_Snuggles 8y agoSadly enough, the current answers are to either do what you did, or replace disks one by one. RAIDZ expansion is coming though[0]. This is the right answer to your problem, but an answer at some point in the future doesn't help you with your problem today. [0] https://www.bsdcan.org/2018/schedule/events/960.en.html https://www.bsdcan.org/2018/schedule/events/960.en.html
- luke0016 8y agoOh, this is going to be great. Thank you for the link! And, replacing disks one by one would require me to buy 3 disks instead of 1. I did that the last time I grew my array :-/
- boomboomsubban 8y ago>This sucked. What should I have done instead? You should have read almost anything about ZFS before investing several hundred dollars and your data into it. It sucked for you, but seems like a reasonable ask. I'm surprised you chose ZFS without knowing about it, it seems to be mentioned in every discussion about ZFS.
- luke0016 8y agoshrug I knew plenty about ZFS at the time - just not that particular fact. I was also making the point that "make a new vdev" doesn't solve that particular problem. Overall, I'm quite happy with ZFS.