# Want opinions on drive allocation!  =)



## SilverJS (Jul 3, 2011)

Alright!

So, my hardware is coming in.  I've got an NZXT H2 case, with 8 (!!) 3 TB hard drives - the 5K3000 ones.  The H2 has 8 internal 3.5 bays, and my motherboard (M4A88T-M) has 6 SATA ports, and I've added a PCI-E card, the ST Labs A-341 with a SIL3132 chip, for a total of 8 SATA ports.  So, I have a 500GB hard drive for a boot drive, and 7 remaining bays/SATA ports.

What would you guys think for a setup?  I was thinking :

4 X data drives
2 X parity (if running RAIDZ2)
1 X hot spare

That leaves me with a spare drive in case one fails.  Is there too much redundancy in your opinion in this setup?  Should I go with :

5 X data drives
1 X parity (RAIDZ1)
1 X hot spare

Or, ditch the hot spare altogether?

Feed me some opinions!  =)

Thanks!


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## graudeejs (Jul 3, 2011)

I vote for plan A.


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## SilverJS (Jul 3, 2011)

What about this?  (Forgot about this possibility when submitting the thread - how can I edit posts, btw...?) :

[RAIDZ (3 * 3TB) + RAIDZ (3 * 3TB)] + HOTSPARE

Or still plan A?


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## graudeejs (Jul 3, 2011)

Plan A: while you resilver after lost drive, you might lose another drive... if that happens you will be screwed. With plan A you can lose up to 2 drives. RAIDZ2 should be preferred over RAIDZ, when possible.

You can edit posts after 10 days and 10 posts. (for more info read e-mail you received when you registered).


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## SilverJS (Jul 4, 2011)

OK, thanks.  =)  Plan A is what I'm using right now, indeed.


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## mix_room (Jul 4, 2011)

ZFS v28 has triple parity RAID. 

RAIDZ3.

http://ivoras.net/blog/tree/2011-02-27.zfs-v28-in-freebsd-9-current!.html

You would then have 4+3 drives active.


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## graudeejs (Jul 4, 2011)

mix_room said:
			
		

> ZFS v28 has triple parity RAID.
> 
> RAIDZ3.
> 
> ...



Yes, I didn't mention that because it's not in FreeBSD-8 yet (unless you patch it)


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