Add additional disk to volume

[Paktas]

Maybe I am blind, but I can't find any links/icons to adding additional disks to volume. If that is really the case we need to be able to add more disks to volume.

[jfr2006]

You can't...current version of ZFS and the version of ZFS supported in freenas does not allow this. You will have to create a new volume.

[Paktas]

On wiki it says you can add, but that's most probably for stripe only (which it doesn't say)

Adding to an Existing Volume
ZFS volumes support the addition of disks to an existing zpool. To achieve this in the GUI, go to Storage -> Volumes -> Create Volume. In the "Volume Name" section, input the same name as an existing volume, select the disk(s) you wish to add, and click ZFS. FreeNAS will interpret this configuration as a request to expand the existing ZFS volume.


Even if wiki info is correct - doesn't seem to be the best way of adding additional drives from GUI perspective...

[jfr2006]

This will not expand the size of your volume, unless the number of disks and size used to create the new volume is equal to the ones on the existing volume. And even in this situation, you will endup with 2 independent volumes linked like one, that is:

Suppose you have a volume 1, with 3x 2TB in raidz1 mode (total usable space will be 4TB). Now you had 3 new 2TB disks and create a volume with the same name the existing. You will end up with 8TB of disk space, but there will be 2 volumes in you zpool, although you will not notice. If you had started with 6 x 2TB disks and created a new volume, you would get 10TB of usable space. Got the difference?

Believe me..i have passed for all of this, when simulating it on a virtual machine

[matthewowen01]

ZFS supports 2 ways of increasing a pools size.

expanding a pool is quite easy as long as you're comfortable with the cli. you need to choose how you want to increase your size. you have 2 options: 1. replace every disk with a larger one, if you started with 500 GB drives and want to move to 2 TB drives. 2. Add a new vdev to your pool with the SAME level of redundancy, if you started with a 6 disk raidz2 and want to add 4 disks in a raidz2.

let me know what you currently have and which way you want to go. I've done them both and they are no more difficult than the other.

[Milhouse]

2. Add a new vdev to your pool with the SAME level of redundancy, if you started with a 6 disk raidz2 and want to add 4 disks in a raidz2.

@matthewowen01: Does it have to be the same level of redundancy? What if you create a volume/zpool with a single RAIDZ vdev consisting of 4 disks, then later you add (as an example) a 2-disk mirror vdev to the same zpool? I think that should work, and ZFS will stripe new data across both the existing RAIDZ vdev and also the new RAID1/mirrored vdev.

@Paktas: You're not blind, but the FreeNAS GUI merges the whole vdev/zpool creation process and retitles it as the "Volume" creation process - as such, it becomes a little confusing how you then create a second vdev to add to an existing zpool but in fact all you do is create a volume using the exact same name as your existing volume (zpool) name, and the new disks will be created in a new vdev (using the redundancy level you choose) then added to your existing zpool. New data will be striped across the original vdev and also the new vdev. Obviously if you were to lose an entire vdev you would lose access to all the data in the zpool, so choose your redundancy levels wisely.

[matthewowen01]

@matthewowen01: Does it have to be the same level of redundancy? What if you create a volume/zpool with a single RAIDZ vdev consisting of 4 disks, then later you add (as an example) a 2-disk mirror vdev to the same zpool? I think that should work, and ZFS will stripe new data across both the existing RAIDZ vdev and also the new RAID1/mirrored vdev.

yes you can, you can do anything you want, but the powers that be recommend against it. I generally heed those warnings unless I know the underpinnings of the warning. your example would be redundant to 1 disk.

it could vary well be a laziness issue, if the new vdev is not of the same type as the old it complains. it's easier than making sure all mirrors are 3 way when adding to a raidz2.

[gla]

ZFS supports 2 ways of increasing a pools size.

expanding a pool is quite easy as long as you're comfortable with the cli. you need to choose how you want to increase your size. you have 2 options: 1. replace every disk with a larger one, if you started with 500 GB drives and want to move to 2 TB drives. 2. Add a new vdev to your pool with the SAME level of redundancy, if you started with a 6 disk raidz2 and want to add 4 disks in a raidz2.

let me know what you currently have and which way you want to go. I've done them both and they are no more difficult than the other.

Hi

I am new to all this but I think I got a good grasp on ZFS and FreeNAS after some reading.

I guess what you are mentioning in your second point is a "zpool add pool vdev" command, aren't you? From what I've read, modifying the zpools using CLI causes the internal FreeNAS ZFS database to desynchronize from the actual ZFS zpools configuration and it is NOT recommended since there is no way to resynchronize.

But maybe I'm wrong (actually, I hope to be).

Cheers
Guillaume

[warri]

I guess what you are mentioning in your second point is a "zpool add pool vdev" command, aren't you? From what I've read, modifying the zpools using CLI causes the internal FreeNAS ZFS database to desynchronize from the actual ZFS zpools configuration and it is NOT recommended since there is no way to resynchronize.

But maybe I'm wrong (actually, I hope to be).

I think this is basically correct, but you can try exporting your zpool via the GUI before adding another pool via CLI and auto-import the pool afterwards. That should prevent messing up the database. I'm not sure if that will be working for a zpool with several pools, and if the labels are set correctly, but you could give it a try in a VM.

[gla]

Yep, that's confirmed by the FAQ:

29) Can I use the Web interface and also use the command line interface to ZFS in FreeNas?

The answer depends on what you do to your ZFS pool.

The GUI interface relies an a small database for its current settings, which resides on your USB drive. Changes to the ZFS file system made in the GUI are written to this database, however the reverse is not true. When you issue commands from the command line, these commands do not update the GUI database. This means that the actual state of ZFS may be different from what the GUI assumes.

An example:
Exporting a pool from the command line, does not mean the GUI knows it has been exported.

One should indeed test the export/import stuff.