From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 2 13:49:52 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ED73F106566C for ; Fri, 2 Jan 2009 13:49:52 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from frederique@isafeelin.org) Received: from smtp02.online.nl (smtp02.online.nl [194.134.41.32]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B4D958FC1A for ; Fri, 2 Jan 2009 13:49:52 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from frederique@isafeelin.org) Received: from smtp02.online.nl (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp02.online.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id C3A1FA048 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 2009 14:33:35 +0100 (CET) Received: from [192.168.1.15] (s55919a03.adsl.wanadoo.nl [85.145.154.3]) by smtp02.online.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP for ; Fri, 2 Jan 2009 14:33:35 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <495E17AD.30707@isafeelin.org> Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:33:33 +0100 From: Frederique Rijsdijk User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 (Windows/20081209) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Online-Scanned: by Cloudmark authority (on smtp02.online.nl) Subject: Using HDD's for ZFS: 'desktop' vs 'raid / enterprise' -edition drives? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:49:53 -0000 Hi freebsd-questions, For personal use (photo/video storage), I'm looking into creating a huge single ZFS (raidz) volume that will replace my current collection of drives used as storage. I'm thinking 4*1TB drives in RAID5(z). My question is regarding the flavour of drivers that one can choose from: Desktop class drives, or the so called RAID/Enterprise class drives. The difference between the two being the way such a drive handles the bad-sector/block handling and remapping. I understand that Desktop class drives do all this internally, and this is a process that can take up to >60s (even minutes on some), and during this process the drive is unavailable to the controller. The RAID edition drives all appoach this differently and alot faster, typically before 8 seconds. How does ZFS handle this? Should I be looking for the RAID class drives or can Desktop class drives be used here? My worry is of course that such a drive (destkop class) will be marked defective and thrown out of the raid volume if a remapping of bad sectors occurs and the drive will be unresponsive to the controller/ZFS for > 8 seconds. Some drives can be configured in this area, but not all, and there's quite a price difference in the two, the desktop class being up to 50% cheaper in some cases.. Anybody that can shed some light on this? Thanks, -- Frederique