ZFS Pool as array device instead of individual disks

[cyp2k]

Hi all,

since ZFS was now officially released in Unraid, I`ve started to re-create my whole storage from scratch.

 

First attempt:

 

RAID2 - 1 Pool 1 VDEV x 6 disks
- Good performance
- Bad power consumption, since all drives are always running
- In case of failure of three drives (most unlikely) all data is lost
- Would have to replace all of the 6 disks to have the pool expanded

 

Second attempt:

 

Mirroring 1 Pool 3 VDEVs x 2 disks
- Good performance
- Would only have the replace two disks of any VDEV to have the pool expanded

- only 50% of storage available
- Bad power consumption, since all drives are always running
- In case of failure of two drives in same VDEV all data is lost

 

Third attempt:

 

RAIDZ1 - 1 Pool 2 VDEVs x 3 disks
- Good performance (compared to Unraid Disk + Parity)
- Would have to replace three disks of any VDEV to have the pool expanded
- Bad power consumption, since all drives are always running
- In case of failure of two drives in same VDEV all data is lost

Final setup:

 

RAIDZ1 - 2 Pools 1 VDEV each  x 3 disks combined with MergerFS
- Good performance (compared to Unraid Disk + Parity)
- Would have to replace three disks to have the pool expanded
- Better power consumption, since only the disks of the pool are running
- In case of failure of two drives in one pool, only the data of the affected pool is lost.

 

Since the pools of the final setup are combined with MergerFS, there is unfortunately no way to set-up the shares via Unraid GUI. I am using the Samba Extras currently.

 

As a feature it would be awesome to have pools assigned as an array device instead of individual disks. With this implementation you could use all the benefits of Unraid GUI (managing shares in GUI, configuring spilt level, allocation method, etc.) but would also have all the features of ZFS.

Edited October 9, 2023 by cyp2k

[itimpi]

Something like this is likely to be possible in a future release when the current Unraid main array becomes just another pool type.   Hopefully at that point you can specify any array type as primary or secondary storage which should achieve what you want I think.   

 

However we are going to have to wait and see if this is what eventually materializes and even if it does come I have no idea of any likely ETA.