[OmniOS-discuss] Request advise on pool upgrade

[Olaf Marzocchi]

You have a big pool with many vdevs and that makes, as you noticed, upgrades difficult
I guess you don't need exceptional performances, isn't it?

Go then for 8 TB and option 1, creating a new pool as big as the previous one. Use the opportunity (the last one you'll have!) to move everything there, then split the previous one into two.
When done, redistribute, as much as possible, the datasets between the three pools.

At least in the future you will be able to use two pools as temporary backup for the third one if you need to take one offline for any reason.
This trumps all the other advantages and disadvantages IMHO.

Olaf



Il 6 febbraio 2018 21:27:43 CET, Andries Annema <an3s.annema at gmail.com> ha scritto:
>Hi guys,
>
>Could you please give me some advise on the best way to increase the 
>capacity on my home server (running OmniOS obviously...)?
>
>About four years ago I started designing and building my home storage 
>server based on a "Coolermaster Stacker" tower case by retrofitting
>into 
>it three Norco SS-500 and one SS-300 hotswap modules, for a total of 18
>
>hard drives.
>With this number of drive bays available, I choose to go for RAIDZ2: 
>three vdevs of six drives each.
>
>Back in 2014, I started with only one vdev of six 4TB WD40EFRX drives. 
>About a year later, in early 2015, I put another six of those drives in
>
>and expanded the pool. It has been humming happily ever since. Awesome.
>
>Over time however, the used pool capacity has now gone up to 86%. It's 
>time to expand again.
>I see a number of possible ways to do so:
>
>1. Get another six 4TB WD40EFRX's and fill the last open bays, adding a
>    3rd vdev (capacity +50%).
>    Pros: these drives are cheap nowadays, much cheaper than they were
>    three or four years ago.
>    Cons: six extra spindles will increase electricity cost.
> 2. Get six 8TB WD80EFZX's and fill the last open bays, adding a 3rd
>    vdev (capacity +100%).
>    Pros: huge capacity increase.
>    Cons: higher upgrade cost than option 1 (due to more expensive
>    drives). Six extra spindles will increase electricity cost.
> 3. Get six 8TB WD80EFZX's and *replace* the first vdev with bigger
>    disks (capacity +50%).
>    Pros: amount of spindles doesn't change and thus electricity cost
>    will more or less remain the same. Replaced drives can be utilized
>    elsewhere, e.g. for offline pool-backups.
>Cons: higher upgrade cost than option 1 (due to more expensive drives).
>
>The first question that comes to mind for option 2 and 3: are there any
>
>disadvantages to creating a pool out of different capacity drives? The 
>drives per vdev are identical, it's just the vdevs within the pool that
>
>aren't.
>
>Right now I am leaning towards options 2 or 3, with maybe a little 
>preference for option 3, I think.
>
>Any thoughts you guys can share on this matter? Would appreciate it.
>Thanks!
>
>Regards,
>
>Andries
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