On Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:52:57 +0100 steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 30/09/16 10:45, Chris Walker wrote:
On Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:42:25 +0100 Chris Walker alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk wrote:
For a device to house the discs, I'm considering one of these - http://www.ebuyer.com/722189-hpe-proliant-gen8-g1610t-819185-421-4gb-ram-mic... and using Debian as the OS.
I've thought about getting one of those too.
Ok. I've taken the first step and ordered one of those from ebuyer. They also offered hard drives to go in it and I'll take Mick's advice and add some new drives too.
But instead of going for 2 * 2TB, I'm going to add 2 * 3TB as the price difference doesn't warrant going for the smaller drives. EBuyer had those at around £95 instead of £97 at scan.co.uk.
Assuming that, to start, I use my existing discs, but later expand to 2
- 2TB drives, I assume that I can use all 4 drives but have each
pair mirror one another. So that I have the 1TB discs mirror each other and the 2TB similarly mirror each other. Can I do that using RAID?
I'm sure you can, but first, if you are replacing the disks because they're old or you're worried about them, then replace the disks because they're old, not hang on to them! If there's any doubt about the old disks, I'd stop using them
The existing drives aren't that old so I'm happy to keep those until the new drives turn up - I have yet to order those.
You could do what you describe - you'd end up with two independent raid arrays. Look at the Wikipedia RAID article, there are various combinations
I've looked at several sites including this one - https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/RAID_setup and also this one - https://www.howtoforge.com/software-raid1-grub-boot-debian-etch.
Next question concerns the filing system. Somebody has suggested to me that I should be considering zfs. I've no experience of that so is that something I should definitely do or possibly consider, or not bother with?
Personally, though I've heard of zfs, I've never used it. I wouldn't have a clue how to use it or its tools. I'd check up on how to create, use, fix a zfs partition & raid with a zfs filesystem. If you're happy, I guess carry on. Personally, I'm just happy with ext4 (or 3), as I know how to use it .
I would be concerned if something were to break and be faced with the difficulty of recovering data from a zfs disk so I might well stick with what I'm familiar with and that's ext3/4. I will again take Mick's advice though and in time add a USB disc for backup.