Does FreeNAS wipe hard drive?

[Misinthe]

Good morning everyone, this is my situation. I'm building a freenas/emby server and right now I have 2 WD Red 4TB that I'm using with my main rig. I want to transfer those to the server I will be building. My question is, will FreeNAS wipe my hard drives during setup, or are my files safe? Thank you all! 

[Electronics Wizardy]

It will wipe hdds if you add them to the pool.

[Misinthe]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

It will wipe hdds if you add them to the pool.

That's what I thought, I will need a 3rd one to set it up, then transfer all files on 1 of them, then add that one and then transfer the files from the second one and then add that. Such a hassle haha. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

That's what I thought, I will need a 3rd one to set it up, then transfer all files on 1 of them, then add that one and then transfer the files from the second one and then add that. Such a hassle haha. 

You should already have that 3rd for backups, or anouther backup you can use for something like this.

[Spotty]

You'll need to use ZFS with FreeNAS, so you'll need to format drives in that file system to add them to the pool. If it's already ZFS you can usually just import it as an existing pool. If it's not using ZFS, you'll lose the data on the drive when you add it.

[Misinthe]

17 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You should already have that 3rd for backups, or anouther backup you can use for something like this.

I know, I've been running unprotected for a while now, that's why I want to set it up in a server and have an external hard drive to back up the server off network. One question, is a Freenas backup compressed like SQL does or would it be just a mirror? 

15 minutes ago, Spotty said:

You'll need to use ZFS with FreeNAS, so you'll need to format drives in that file system to add them to the pool. If it's already ZFS you can usually just import it as an existing pool. If it's not using ZFS, you'll lose the data on the drive when you add it.

Thank you for the info, right now they're either NTFS or Fat32, I'm not sure. 

[Jarsky]

1 hour ago, Miguel552 said:

That's what I thought, I will need a 3rd one to set it up, then transfer all files on 1 of them, then add that one and then transfer the files from the second one and then add that. Such a hassle haha. 

With FreeNAS,  you cannot add drives one at a time to a vdev. If you want 3 devices in your vdev, then you need to create it with 3 devices. 

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Jarsky said:

With FreeNAS,  you cannot add drives one at a time to a vdev. If you want 3 devices in your vdev, then you need to create it with 3 devices. 

I think he meant the third drive was just a temporary place to dump files currently on the 2 existing ones. 

[Misinthe]

1 hour ago, Jarsky said:

With FreeNAS,  you cannot add drives one at a time to a vdev. If you want 3 devices in your vdev, then you need to create it with 3 devices. 

So I can't add more drives later when I need to? 

25 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I think he meant the third drive was just a temporary place to dump files currently on the 2 existing ones. 

Well, I meant adding one by one to the pool. One empty first and then offload one of my full ones into it (in the NAS), then add the newly emptied one to the pool. Then offload the second full one in the newly added to the NAS, and finally add the last one to the pool now that it's empty. 

[Jarsky]

16 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

So I can't add more drives later when I need to? 

Well, I meant adding one by one to the pool. One empty first and then offload one of my full ones into it (in the NAS), then add the newly emptied one to the pool. Then offload the second full one in the newly added to the NAS, and finally add the last one to the pool now that it's empty. 

 

 

Not with FreeNAS you cant no. 

You cant create your RAIDZ1 VDEV without a minimum of 3 disks, and you cant add disks to the VDEV later. 

You can create a RAIDZ1 VDEV (e.g 3 x 4TB drives = 8TB space) and then create another VDEV later (3 x 4TB drives = 8TB space) and you can add that to the ZPOOL for a total of 16TB usable space; but you cant add a single drive at a time, you have to create a VDEV every time you need to add storage to the pool. 

[Misinthe]

27 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

 

 

Not with FreeNAS you cant no. 

You cant create your RAIDZ1 VDEV without a minimum of 3 disks, and you cant add disks to the VDEV later. 

You can create a RAIDZ1 VDEV (e.g 3 x 4TB drives = 8TB space) and then create another VDEV later (3 x 4TB drives = 8TB space) and you can add that to the ZPOOL for a total of 16TB usable space; but you cant add a single drive at a time, you have to create a VDEV every time you need to add storage to the pool. 

Thank you for that info. Why do I need the 1 extra drive, for the raid? I could just buy an external drive instead and move my files in it and then move them back after the setup. But I only have 2 x 4TB drives. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, Miguel552 said:

I know, I've been running unprotected for a while now, that's why I want to set it up in a server and have an external hard drive to back up the server off network. One question, is a Freenas backup compressed like SQL does or would it be just a mirror? 

You can(and should) have compression on zfs in freenas. compresses things like databases very well.

 

And just because you can for a while with no data loss, there is alsways a change, so just keep the backups checked.

[dalekphalm]

3 hours ago, Miguel552 said:

Thank you for that info. Why do I need the 1 extra drive, for the raid? I could just buy an external drive instead and move my files in it and then move them back after the setup. But I only have 2 x 4TB drives. 

RAIDZ1 has a requirement of 3 drives at minimum to configure. You also cannot currently expand ZFS RAID arrays (though they are “working” on it, but it could still be months or years before that feature is released). 

 

So you have several options:

 

1. Buy a new (internal or external) drive large enough to hold *all* your data - move your data to this new drive, and use all three (including the new 4TB one you were already planning on getting) in a new RAIDZ1 array. You will have 4 drives total. Use the drive used to hold your data as a backup drive. 

 

2. Don’t use RAIDZ1 at all. Use mirrored vdev (RAID1 equivalent) to mirror the two drives. Still requires a third drive to hold the data temporarily. Loses half the capacity. Less ideal. 

[Misinthe]

56 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can(and should) have compression on zfs in freenas. compresses things like databases very well.

 

And just because you can for a while with no data loss, there is alsways a change, so just keep the backups checked.

 

39 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

RAIDZ1 has a requirement of 3 drives at minimum to configure. You also cannot currently expand ZFS RAID arrays (though they are “working” on it, but it could still be months or years before that feature is released). 

 

So you have several options:

 

1. Buy a new (internal or external) drive large enough to hold *all* your data - move your data to this new drive, and use all three (including the new 4TB one you were already planning on getting) in a new RAIDZ1 array. You will have 4 drives total. Use the drive used to hold your data as a backup drive. 

 

2. Don’t use RAIDZ1 at all. Use mirrored vdev (RAID1 equivalent) to mirror the two drives. Still requires a third drive to hold the data temporarily. Loses half the capacity. Less ideal. 

This is what I was thinking I would have to do. The problem is I am currently running out of space, so I need to expand beyond my 2 old + 1 new for redundancy. And my question is, if I have 3 x 4 TB data + 1  4TB redundancy, would an 8TB external be enough to store the snapshots?

[Electronics Wizardy]

32 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

 

This is what I was thinking I would have to do. The problem is I am currently running out of space, so I need to expand beyond my 2 old + 1 new for redundancy. And my question is, if I have 3 x 4 TB data + 1  4TB redundancy, would an 8TB external be enough to store the snapshots?

you can't just store snapshots, so the 8tb will have to store all the data + all the changes you want to keep.

[Misinthe]

12 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

you can't just store snapshots, so the 8tb will have to store all the data + all the changes you want to keep.

So if I have 16TB of actual data, I would need more than that for the snapshots backup. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

So if I have 16TB of actual data, I would need more than that for the snapshots backup. 

If you need 16tb of data you backups would need to be 16tb + how much of changes you want to store.

[Misinthe]

15 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If you need 16tb of data you backups would need to be 16tb + how much of changes you want to store.

What do you mean by "changes"? I know the backup would be incremental, so obviously if my data is 20TB after a week, I would need 20TB. Or would I need 16 + 20TB? 

[dalekphalm]

5 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

So if I have 16TB of actual data, I would need more than that for the snapshots backup. 

Yes. You’d need 16TB plus whatever file changes between the last time you ran a backup. 

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If you need 16tb of data you backups would need to be 16tb + how much of changes you want to store.

Agreed. 

[Misinthe]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

Yes. You’d need 16TB plus whatever file changes between the last time you ran a backup. 

Agreed. 

Thank you for all the info so far, I didn't know it was this complicated. But having a backup right now doesn't seem possible, I would need a other complete NAS to just mirror the first one. So I guess I'll just do with the redundancy for now and forget about the backups. 

[dalekphalm]

5 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

What do you mean by "changes"? I know the backup would be incremental, so obviously if my data is 20TB after a week, I would need 20TB. Or would I need 16 + 20TB? 

You would need 16TB plus the file size of changed or new files since your last backup. 

 

So if you added 20TB since the last backup, then yes you’d need 36TB. 

 

Alternatively if you start with 16TB and you edit/change 1TB worth of files, and add 2TB worth of new files, you’d need 19TB. 

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Miguel552 said:

Thank you for all the info so far, I didn't know it was this complicated. But having a backup right now doesn't seem possible, I would need a other complete NAS to just mirror the first one. So I guess I'll just do with the redundancy for now and forget about the backups. 

Redundancy is not a backup. 

 

If you get a ransomware infection or accidentally delete files, you’re SOL. 

 

I would suggest perhaps prioritizing your data in levels of importance.

 

Start with the data you absolutely cannot afford to lose. Backup that data. Then save up for a proper backup solution and add more data to be backed up as you can. 

[Misinthe]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Redundancy is not a backup. 

 

If you get a ransomware infection or accidentally delete files, you’re SOL. 

 

I would suggest perhaps prioritizing your data in levels of importance.

 

Start with the data you absolutely cannot afford to lose. Backup that data. Then save up for a proper backup solution and add more data to be backed up as you can. 

Well, all my important data is saved in the cloud (Dropbox) this would be mainly for my movies/TV shows. It would suck to lose them but I can always get again. I will implement something better when I have money but right now I can't afford to get a backup solution. Specially since I need to get 2 more 4TB drives, that's $250 I didn't plan to get before. 

[dalekphalm]

8 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

Well, all my important data is saved in the cloud (Dropbox) this would be mainly for my movies/TV shows. It would suck to lose them but I can always get again. I will implement something better when I have money but right now I can't afford to get a backup solution. Specially since I need to get 2 more 4TB drives, that's $250 I didn't plan to get before. 

Fair enough - if this is stuff you can replace, you can always add backup later. 

[Misinthe]

10 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Fair enough - if this is stuff you can replace, you can always add backup later. 

Yeah, I've never had backups, I just wanted to go all in but it's not something I'll be able to do. I'll be sure to do it ASAP. Thank you very much for your time and help.