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Date:      Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:55:10 +0200
From:      Pawel Jakub Dawidek <pjd@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Mark Powell <M.S.Powell@salford.ac.uk>
Cc:        freebsd-fs@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: ZfS & GEOM with many odd drive sizes
Message-ID:  <20070719135510.GE1194@garage.freebsd.pl>
In-Reply-To: <20070719102302.R1534@rust.salford.ac.uk>
References:  <20070719102302.R1534@rust.salford.ac.uk>

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On Thu, Jul 19, 2007 at 11:19:08AM +0100, Mark Powell wrote:
> Hi,
>   I'd like to experiment with ZFS.
>   To that end I'd like to get a running array from a rather ad hoc=20
> collection of old drives.
>=20
>  3x250GB
>  3x200GB
>  1x400GB
>=20
>=20
> I planned to arrange them in 3 pairs of of 250+200. Therefore I'd end up=
=20
> with an effective 4 drives:
>=20
>  3x450GB
>  1x400GB
>=20
> I'd gmirror to make a small 2GB root and swap from the extra 50GB on the =
3=20
> pairs. Then gconcat to join the remaining 448GB from each pair into a=20
> volume. Apparently root is possible on ZFS with a small ufs to boot from:
>=20
> http://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFSOnRoot
>=20
>   Then make a zfs raidz from the 3x448+1x400. Effectively giving a zpool=
=20
> of 1200GB real storage. 3x48GB will not be accessible now as the last=20
> volume will only be the 400GB on the last drive.
>   I want to be able to increase the size of this volume later, by=20
> replacing drives when they fail, or it becomes economical to do so.
>   I know removing a volume from a zpool and replacing it with a larger on=
e=20
> is possible. The zpool will self-heal the data onto the new volume.=20
> Eventually when the final volume is replaced by a larger one the extra=20
> space becomes available for use. That's correct right?
>   What I want to know is, does the new volume have to be the same actual=
=20
> device name or can it be substituted with another?
>   i.e. can I remove, for example, one of the 448GB gconcats e.g. gc1 and=
=20
> replace that with a new 750GB drive e.g. ad6?
>   Eventually so that once all volumes are replaced the zpool could be, fo=
r=20
> example, 4x750GB or 2.25TB of usable storage.
>   Many thanks for any advice on these matters which are new to me.

All you described above should work.

--=20
Pawel Jakub Dawidek                       http://www.wheel.pl
pjd@FreeBSD.org                           http://www.FreeBSD.org
FreeBSD committer                         Am I Evil? Yes, I Am!

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