If i want to setup raid 10 on freenas, would i a stripe two sets of two disks and then mirror them to each other. This is a common case with higher configurations of the raid. Hardware raid cards typically rebuild disks in a linear manner from. I have not been tendering this blog for quite a while now, but it feels good to be back. Raidz, the software raid that is part of zfs, offers single parity redundancy.
How to check hardware raid status in linux command line replace devsg1 with your disk number. Its really not any more difficult to set up and you might have to follow a howto to replace a failed drive but everyone ive spoken with 3 other guys that has had a hardware array has had problems rebuilding the array after a failure that resulted in data loss. I have a server with 16 gb ram and 4x1tb hdds configured as raid 10. I have a freenas system up and running and wanted to test it out so i unplugged one of my disk and it said degraded. Configuring freenas to setup zfs storage disks and. This is something of a misconception as all raid is software raid. Freenas vs unraid coming to terms servethehome forums. One of them will be used for the os and cant be used for other raid configuration. Freenas gives users the ability to set up zfs arrays and resilver disks in the case of a drive failure. This guide provides a highlevel overview of steps required to rebuild a failed raid. His issue isnt with zfs, its that most parity raid raidz, raidz2, raid5, raid6, etc doesnt support safely rebalancing an array to a different number of disks. Decided to do one more thing right now, i installed windows server use an adaptec raid card to build raid 10. The raid array was made using freenas and the drives were all connected to the motherboards sata ports so i am assuming that would make it a software raid.
Oh yeah, the 64bit freenas iso image itself, which you can snag here. Nerds faction decided to build a freenas server with an old pc amd 866mhz. It is rebuilding the data blocks on the new disk until the mirror, in this case, is in a completely healthy state. Deciding between hardware and software raid in my freenas. One blank cdr cdrw for writing the freenas iso in preparation for the installation. Zfs has its own names for its software raid implementations. The reason i ask is that from my understanding, drobo nas appliances and synology nas appliances and maybe even readynas allow you to add a disk to a storage pool without rebuilding. Sometimes, after rebuilding the entire raid array, it is discovered that the raid is not perfectly built. To setup emailing if your software raid is having problems in freenas means filling out the email information, once again in linux a mission. If you have a degraded raid 1 array in freenas you may need to replace the disk and trigger the rebuild on your nas device. Instructions in this video still apply for freenas 11. Instead, it has the software raid but the software raid requires 5 hdds. It now should be as simple as adding the new partitions to the raid management. In case one hdd failed in raid1 raid5 raid6 raid10 configuration, please hot unplug failed disk, wait for 1 minute and hot plug in the new one.
Dataset is created inside the volume, which we have created in above step. Only problem is adding space in the future, but i like your suggestion for using mirrored pairs. Zfs is a battletested file system, a volume manager and a software raid implementation all in one. You can do zfs with it and it has raid levels built into the file system. I am running out of space and dodnt want to buy 8 drives to upgrade my raid 6 array. Other software raid solutions like linux mdadm lets you grow an existing raid array with one disk at a time. Also you want to use ecc ram because zfs uses checksums to check for data integrity and you dont want to lose data because you had somekind of memory corruption. After connecting to the admin interface, i was able to see my hard drives and could start the configuration of the software raid. How do i go about acctually starting the rebuild process though. So, for example, zfs could repair things in case of a failure, but. Not being fully conversant with storage regimes, i then considered the option of having two disks, one primary which then did a daytoday rsync between discs so there was always a redundant copy. We are however discussing general aspects of raid data recovery.
Likewise the fact that the freenas software is free to use means that we are not paying overheads for system software. Selfbuilt nas wfreenas and a hardware raid controller guys, i am just starting to do research and spec out a desktop nas freenas but as i read more into it i found that mobo raid controllers i plan to do 4x3tb raid5 are considered evil of all sorts, so they encourage people to get a controller. It was part of a linux software raid 1 mirrored drives, so we lost no data, and just needed to replace hardware. Build process is now complete and successfull, and now i am running a tools diskfilltest to fill the drive with random data.
If you go to disk software raid and click on tools you can send commands and if you continued. Zfs, the file system for freenas, has its own software raid implementations. Thankfully i was right because trying to setup new hdd to rebuild raid proved to be disastrous, and i ended up losing the volume. Luckily, freenas is based on freebsd that provides super easy way to setup a software raid manually. They provide free and opensource enterprise grade network attached storage software. If you are using a hardware raid controller, for the disks attached it, dont use the standard device names for each disk. Freenas how to view status of rebuilding raidz in freenas. Its either that or i do small raid 5 pools, but that is inefficient since raid 5 works better in larger pools. Amd 866mhz 768 mg ram hdd primary ide 60gig network pci 10100 power supply 420 w ide cddrive components for the. Instead, these raid controllers present a virtual disk for each raid set, using a device named after the raid controller driver. How to setup raid 10 on freenas solutions experts exchange. How to replace failed redundant boot drives youtube. The higher the configuration of capacity drives, the higher the latency period and hence datainaccessibility for an extended time that may stretch to for long hours. All my personal data backup using the following hardware.
We know that software raid in windows has always sucked. Linux use smartctl to check disk behind adaptec raid. But for some of you, which would like to see whats the installation process looks like, i can show you the installation process by using my vmware workstation 7. My i7 qnap array encounter a drive failure with a 4tb wd red 5400rmp drive and rebuilding took 2 days leaving the system so slow i considered it outofservice.
If the replacement is done after nas rebooting or shutdown, administrator has to manually add spare in admin web gui to start the raid rebuilding. I dug deeper last night and ive dropped the idea of using any kind of addin raid card or using raid from the mb bios. Now i have to configure that server for the freenas, but i have found that the freenas wont support the hardware raid. The only snag is which partition matches which raid array. How easy is moving freenas drives from one server to another. So installed freenas on new server imported backup config shut it down. A hardware array would usually automatically rebuild upon drive replacement, but this needed some help. I will take a closer look at it in the morning and see if i can get more details. From googling i keep seeing the instruction to go to the disks menu, and click on software raid. Added the new hard drive to the array from the same volume status page.
Datasets are just like folder with compression level, share type, quota and much more features. Use the disk field to select which disk you want to add to the freenas configuration. Build raid server with freenas software with an old pc. Raid5 uses a parity block which gives it the ability to rebuild the lost data if a. And hardware raid has been a great, but expensive and labor intensive, solution for those who have the expertise or can hire it as needed. For my home nas, over the years ive progressed from a winxp box first using onboard raid, then to a hw raid array, to a server 2003 box, to a freenas box too fiddly to finally the w7 box.
So, if you discovered that raid has failed then act according to the following plan. I prefer to use software raid to save money and to avoid vendor lock ins. I also read on a website where someone used debian as the front end for their nas and added disks and migrated from a raid 1 mirror to raid 5 without a rebuild. My other option as freebsdfreenas seems to be picky about what hardware it supports is to use the builtin software raid5 to give me redundancy. Rebuilding a degraded raid1 array in freenas netlife.
Went to the volume status of the raid array in question. With dedicated raid controller all this will happen in the processor of the controller. However, during or after installation, there is no option in the menu to create software raid for boot disk. Freenas and similar projects are definitely intended to be turnkey storage solutions. If a disk is temporarily disconnected from its raid group and then reconnected, the raid group must resynchronize all of its data. Sometimes, the term raid rebuild refers to the process of the redundancy regeneration in raid 5. This information can be gleaned using the mdadm command, which can list the disks and sizes of the different software raid partitions. I think ultimately ill end up on freenas with a new build from the money i get selling the raid card with ecc memory. Freenas mini provides administrators the ultimate in control over their nas, thanks to the extensibility of its opensource software, despite some exasperation with the unixfree bsd software in. Viewing the status of the resilver will help you get an idea of when it will complete.
In the following it is assumed that you have a software raid where a. And imho zfs in freenas is not ready for enterprise. Also, all information regarding the raid i put it in exclamation marks because they dont use raid, but a similar concept is stored on metadata on the disks. Built a new server using an old ibm 206m eserver and nas4free 11. If inconsistencies are found, parity blocks are used to repair corrupt data. This hardwareassisted software raid gives raid arrays that are not dependent on. Here comes steps, assume boot disk is sata devada0 and mirror disk is sata devada1. Nas set up, hardware raid vs freenas or nas4free h. Zfs uses ram for caching therefore 512mb isnt enough. Since these controllers dont do jbod my plan was to break the drives into 2 pairs, 6 on each controller and create the raid 1 pairs on the hardware raid controllers. Running a hw raid card, raid 5 or 6 array and having a ups supporting it.
I now put in a new disk and now when i go to storage and replace that disk and let the raidz rebuild it. After doing my research for a few hours last night, my dilemma is unraid vs. The software raid in linux is well tested, but even with well tested software, raid can fail. Anyone thinking of building something like this, i cant urge you enough to use software raid in linux.