Comments on: Home NAS Expansion – Continued http://irrationale.com/2010/02/06/home-nas-expansion-continued/ leigh henderson's illogical logic Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:46:17 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Hasan http://irrationale.com/2010/02/06/home-nas-expansion-continued/#comment-34 Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:07:06 +0000 http://irrationale.com/?p=879#comment-34 You said:
“If you built a simple dynamic striped array, you could have the flexibility of disk replacement and dynamic expansion, but you would have to sacrifice data security in order to achieve it.”

Could you tell me how to build the array you are talking about? What security features I lose?
You mean I won’t have any redundancy ?

]]> By: Leigh http://irrationale.com/2010/02/06/home-nas-expansion-continued/#comment-33 Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:45:56 +0000 http://irrationale.com/?p=879#comment-33 Well, I’m note sure I’d call it ‘expertise,’ but thanks for the compliment :)

Finding something which emulated the Drobo with common PC hardware which I had lying around was precisely what I was looking for when I started playing with OpenSolaris. I wanted the ability to mix different speed and size disks and store my data safely, as well as replacing disks which had failed or upgrading to larger disks on the fly.

While you can simulate certain aspects of the Drobo’s feature set with OpenSolaris, there are a few limitations at this stage.

For example, a raidz-1 array (single disk redundancy) cannot be expanded by adding larger disks. If you make the array 2Tb when you first create it, it shall always be 2Tb until it is destroyed. You can replace the disks with larger ones, and have a second filesystem if you wish, but the original filesystem will remain the same size.

If you built a simple dynamic striped array, you could have the flexibility of disk replacement and dynamic expansion, but you would have to sacrifice data security in order to achieve it.

As for FreeNAS, I’m not exactly sure what options it has which may bring it a little closer to Drobo’s feature set, but I do know that it offers a simplified version of the ZFS filesystem – with no desktop environment and a few other web-based administration features to boot.

I plan on looking into FreeNAS soon, and I might write an article or two.

Thanks,
Leigh.

]]> By: Hasan http://irrationale.com/2010/02/06/home-nas-expansion-continued/#comment-32 Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:24:34 +0000 http://irrationale.com/?p=879#comment-32 Hello,

I’ve been reading your blog for a while and I like it. Thanks for sharing your expertise :)

I have a question please. I’m new to the NAS thing and actually I’m studying the best way to build my NAS.
I’ve seen FreeNAS which I’m sure you know about. My question is, is it better to use FreeNAS or just install Open Solaris? … would I be able to use different types and sizes of Hard Disks?

I’m trying to do something close to the Drobo. How can I do that??

My question might be too broad, excuse me for that because I’m new to the storage techniques.

Thanks again :)

]]> By: Expanding your OpenSolaris NAS « irrationale http://irrationale.com/2010/02/06/home-nas-expansion-continued/#comment-23 Sat, 06 Feb 2010 01:38:25 +0000 http://irrationale.com/?p=879#comment-23 [...] Home NAS Expansion – Continued « irrationale on 06 Feb 2010 at 11:36 [...]

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