# FreeBSD 10: Root-on-ZFS, use only part of the disk?



## cathode (Aug 1, 2014)

Hi,

I'm having a bit of trouble here. I'll try and be as concise as possible in describing my objective:

I'm setting up a storage server for my employer, using two Intel DC S3500 series 120GB solid state drives (and 12 x 2TB SAS drives for storage). I would like to install FreeBSD10 with root-on-ZFS on these drives, but only use a small (12GB) partition to create a ZFS mirror for the OS. The remaining space, I want to use for a ZIL/SLOG (24GB), and the rest for a L2ARC (striped, everything that's left, on both drives).

I cannot figure out how to tell the FreeBSD10 installer to only use ada0p2 and ada1p2 as my mirror for installing the OS onto. I only get the option for using the entire drives.

Additionally, I've tried installing as normal and then using `zfs send` to backup the zroot pool onto a separate device, then use gpart resize to shrink the ada0p2 and ada1p2 partitions, then recreating the zroot pool and using `zfs recv` to restore the backup back onto the new zroot pool... the system refuses to boot when I do that.

Any assistance with this would be much appreciated.


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## pkubaj (Aug 2, 2014)

You have to do it the old way with shell.
You can modify viewtopic.php?t=31557 to get what you want.


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