Hey guys,
First time on the forum. I hope you guys can provide some guidance.
I have a 24-disk server that I am attempting to expand due to storage constraints. I have recently picked up a Netapp DS4246 with another 24 drives, and have it connected via QSFP. Everything is up and running and I had all the drives as unassigned drives. I wanted to add them to the array, but that's not possible due to the 30 drive limit. Reading up, it's suggested I create a cache pool with these. I did this.
In the Cache Pool settings, leaving the file system as auto defaults to BTRFS, which puts these in a RAID1, halving my capacity. I really want these to be protected with one parity drive to maximize capacity for storage (the data is replaceable). I am guessing I will need to use ZFS with RAIDZ? Sorry, I have no experience with ZFS.
Then, I have a "data" share that I want to span across the 24 drives in the array and the 24 drives in the Netapp cache pool. I really don't want to separate my data share unless there's absolutely no other options. It's going to be messy if I have to.
I have looked into the Share Settings. I wanted to use the array as the primary storage and the Netapp as the secondary storage, but this doesn't appear to be possible. Selecting array as primary greys out the secondary selection. If I use the Netapp as the cache, and the array as the secondary, I believe Mover will keep trying to move the data from the Netapp to the array, causing the array to fill up. I would really like to High-Water across both the array and the Netapp. Once again, I will settle and manage if this isn't an option.
Your guidance and patience is appreciated. :)