Florian 'floe' EchtlerMar 20

Me and a couple of friends have been running our own root server for literal decades, and the hardware is getting a bit long in the tooth, so time for an upgrade.

The question right now is which storage configuration to pick, it's mostly a choice between RAID0-ish(*) over 2 x 8 TB disks or RAID5 over 3 x 4 TB. What does the fediverse think?

(*) not a live RAID0, but a nightly mirror from main disk to backup disk

#selfhosting #linux #sysadmin

2 disks, mirror
30%
3 disks, RAID5
25%
Something else?
45%
Poll ended at .
Show threadax6761Mar 20
@floe #ZFS RAID-Z[23]. Else, ZFS mirror.
Show threadFlorian 'floe' EchtlerMar 20
@ax6761 I admit I've never touched ZFS - from what I can see in the nice primer here (https://blog.victormendonca.com/2020/11/03/zfs-for-dummies/), RAIDZ-2 would require at least 4 disks, do you think RAIDZ-1 would also be an option or are there some pitfalls I'm not aware of?
ZFS for Dummies ยท Victor's Blog

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Show threadax6761Mar 20

@floe Yes more or less, for you can make ZFS RAID-Z2 with 3 disks, giving you usable space of about only 1-disk worth.

With 4+ disks, you get more usable space (& the ZFS pool can tolerate failure of 2 disks).

Show threadAndy HMar 21
@ax6761 @floe RAID-Z2 needs at least 4 disks ๐Ÿ‘ (assuming that was a typo ๐Ÿ˜€)
Show threadax6761

@ToshInMacc What was the typo? What OpenZFS document mentions the absolute need for minimum of 4 disks?

For #RAIDZ2 #OpenZFS documentation mentions https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/Basic%20Concepts/VDEVs.html#what-are-the-different-types-of-vdevs ...

ใ€Ž... Requires at least 3 disks (5+ recommended), can tolerate two drive failures.ใ€

@floe

VDEVs โ€” OpenZFS documentation

Mar 21 at 7:47amWeb
Show threadAndy HMar 21
@ax6761 @floe I stand corrected and apologies! In my head, being similar to RAID-6, it had the same limit. So glad I know this now. ๐Ÿ‘
Show threadax6761Mar 21

@ToshInMacc All good; I got the understanding of RAID 6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels .

@floe

Standard RAID levels - Wikipedia