[OmniOS-discuss] Controller and or HD recomendations. ZFS storage server - upgrade.

[Svavar Örn Eysteinsson]

Hello list.

I'm in the need to upgrade/expand my storage OmniOS ZFS storage server.
which has the following hardware today :

Supermicro AOC USAS L8i - LSI SAS 1068E PCIe controller.
(which has I think a 2TB HD limit)

8x Hitachi Hitachi HDS72302 2TB disks (Deskstar 7K3000)

1x datapool which is configured as 2x vdevs of raidz
datapool
raidz1-0 
 c3t4d0  
 c4t1d0  
 c3t3d0  
 c4t4d0  
raidz1-1 
 c4t0d0  
 c4t2d0  
 c3t1d0  
 c3t2d0  

Total of 14.5TB raw space, 10.5TB usable space.


Now, I need more space and clearly I need another controller and or disks.
The controller is stated above, only supports 2TB disks and those 2TB Hitachi babies
which are awesome have a 512 bytes per sector. So my vdevs have a ashift=9.
I have never ever had any problems what so ever with those Hitachi disks in the last 4 years
or soe.

It was a mistake I think not creating the pool with ashift=12.
As I need to create a new pool which consists of 4K drives in a ashift=12 pool correct ?

Do people recommend any specific PCI-Express controllers that are preferred
with ZFS and supports large disks. 4TB+ 

any success/bad stories on 4TB+ disks from the manufactures ? Seagate/WD/Toshiba/HGST ... ?

Correct me if I'm wrong, is it correct that the optimal number of disks on 4K(sectors) vdev
is 128 / (number of disks - parity disks) = should be a flat number ?
So in my case I have a 128 / 4 - 1 = 31 or is it 128/3 = 42,66 (do not include the parity drive) in a vdev ?

This storage server is mainly used as a archive server and or file services.
Just wandering if the optimal number of disks in a vdev should matter in this case.


Any suggestions and success stories much appreciated.

Thanks allot.

Best regards,

Svavar O
Reykjavik - Iceland