Referencing: https://lemmy.world/post/17588348
I want to make a NAS with a 500GB boot drive and 2x16TB HDDs. Based on my previous post, btrfs is a good option. It also looks easy to get started. My plan for the NAS would be to purchase several 16TB drives, and only use 2 of them.
My first question is about different drives. Could I purchase two different brand drives and use them with btrfs? (I assume yes)
2nd question: how does the replacement process go? Like if drive A died, so I remove it, and put a brand new replacement in. What do I have to do with btrfs to get the raid 1 back going? Any links or guides would be amazing.
Is btrfs RAID stable yet? This article is three years old, so maybe things have improved, but it contains some pretty strong warnings about the dangers of btrfs RAID:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/examining-btrfs-linuxs-perpetually-half-finished-filesystem/
To summarize, the article argues that btrfs is great for single-disk usage but its RAID implementations are idiosyncratic and unreliable.
(I use btrfs daily on several single-disk computers and it has been great, but I have never tried its RAID.)
I believe it’s only RAID 5 and 6 that are unstable, https://btrfs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/btrfs-man5.html#raid56-status-and-recommended-practices
It is better to have more drives and less apares. However, btrfs is only stable in raid 1. With data that big I would go ZFS raidz2 as you can lose up to 2 drives.
From a btrfs perspective it is pretty easy as you just can run btrfs replace with the path of the new drive. Btrfs also has the benefit of being native
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| NAS | Network-Attached Storage |
| RAID | Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage |
| SATA | Serial AT Attachment interface for mass storage |
| SSD | Solid State Drive mass storage |
| ZFS | Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity |
5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 9 acronyms.
[Thread #873 for this sub, first seen 16th Jul 2024, 15:35] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Just if somebody else needs this for ZFS: https://blog.juhefa.de/posts/zfs-replace-disk/
Could I purchase two different brand drives and use them with btrfs?
I don’t quite remember the source for this, but I believe I read some time ago that it’s actually a good thing to have separate drives. The reasoning is, if you buy two identical drives (at the same time), the likelyhood of both drives failing around the same time is severely higher.
This is then amplified by the fact that rebuilding a RAID puts a lot of strain on the non-dead drive, so if ie. drive 1 dies and drive 2 is about to die, the strain you put on drive 2 in order to rebuild your RAID onto drive 3 might kill drive 2 before you even finish rebuilding your RAID.
Again, this is just from my memory, it might be worth doing some more research on.
if you buy two identical drives (at the same time), the likelyhood of both drives failing around the same time is severely higher.
I need sources, this sounds extremely unlikely. That’s basically 2 "independent” probabilities.
The reasoning is that drives are produced and shipped in batches and if you order multiple at onces there is a higher chance you’ll get drives from the same batch. If that batch had some fault during production or it was damaged during shipping, all your drives might be affected.
I don’t have a source, but it’s something multiple expirenced people have mentioned to me.
