I'm new at unraid, I came over from a Synology NAS. Someone on a board said I should use Pools with ZFS instead of Arrays and just use snapshots. To me that sounds risky with all my data. I use it for storage, media server, backup of PCs and Phones. A Windows 11 docker.

 

Should I go with standard array of Pools (Datasets) or how would you set them up. Going in a new build.

 

My drives are as follows.

• 4 16TB WD Red
• 5 4TB WD Red
• 2 3TB WD Red
• 2 1TB SSD
• 1 2TB m.2 NVME
• 3 1TB m.2 NVME

Array will typically be safer, since it's very difficult to lose all the data even if more disks fails that the redundancy allows, it will also allow you to use the full capacity from different size disks, pools won't, on the other hand, performance will be better with pools, so you should choose according to what's most important to you.

On 10/13/2024 at 4:15 AM, JorgeB said:

Array will typically be safer, since it's very difficult to lose all the data even if more disks fails that the redundancy allows, it will also allow you to use the full capacity from different size disks, pools won't, on the other hand, performance will be better with pools, so you should choose according to what's most important to you.

True array is safer but SLLLOOOOOWWWW as MOLASSES.... Holy CRAP is it slow. I am moving 42TB of data off the array to a new ZFS Pool and its been 2 WEEKS and there's still 7TB LEFT!!! GOOD GRIEF CHARLIE BROWN... 

You are getting hit with 2x parity penalty, once when adding data to zfs pool, and again when removing old data from array.

This would also be writing to old disks when data is being removed so you are thrashing between read and write on the old array disks.

Probably some other hardware limits you are hitting depending on how you are setup.

 

A pure copy, then format of array disks would have been quicker.