SOLVED Expanding a 2 disk volume

[Jasper9714]

I've currently got two 3TB drives in RAID1, but am quickly filling it up (just got the 80% warning). I've purchased an additional 3TB drive, and plugged it into the system. However, following what I believe is correct, I see no way to expand the system. Looking in my volume manager, and selecting the volume to extend, I can't seem to get it to see more than 1 3TB drive..

Now, having read a few topics on the forums, I'm starting to think it isn't possible to change the RAID1 I've got going on to a RAIDZ1. Is this true? What's the best thing to do at this point? I'm not really looking forward to copying all data off of it and redoing the setup...

 

[nojohnny101]

Correct. Once you create a vdev (currently our RaidZ1) you can't add additional disks to it. You can strip additional disks to the pool by adding additional vdevs, or you can replace your current drives with bigger ones which will increase your available space once all disks in the vdev are replaced (FreeNAS only uses the size of the smallest disk in the vdev for all disks in the vdev).

NOTE: RaidZ1 is not recommended for disks larger than 1TB because of the increased likelihood of a failure during a resilver which puts the other disks at additional stress.

 

[Jasper9714]

Correct. Once you create a vdev (currently our RaidZ1) you can't add additional disks to it. You can strip additional disks to the pool by adding additional vdevs, or you can replace your current drives with bigger ones which will increase your available space once all disks in the vdev are replaced (FreeNAS only uses the size of the smallest disk in the vdev for all disks in the vdev).

NOTE: RaidZ1 is not recommended for disks larger than 1TB because of the increased likelihood of a failure during a resilver which puts the other disks at additional stress.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying. I can't change the RAID1 into a RaidZ1, and you don't recommend a RaidZ1 either because of the increased likelihod of failure. What am I left with then? I'm not going to be purchasing higher capacity drives, as I've spent about $400 on 3TB WD Reds.

How do I go forward from here? Do I really need to clean out the system and set it up all over again? Or is there some magical way to not delete everything but have it rebuild the volume with three drives in a different configuration? And above all, what configuration do you recommend for a three drive setup (leaving me with at least 6TB of usable capacity)?

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

How do I go forward from here?

Since you started with a 2-drive mirror, the simplest approach that doesn't involve destroying and rebuilding your pool is to add another 2-drive mirror to your existing pool.

 

[Jasper9714]

Since you started with a 2-drive mirror, the simplest approach that doesn't involve destroying and rebuilding your pool is to add another 2-drive mirror to your existing pool.

Thanks for your suggestion, but as I said, I've got three drives, not four. I have no intention to spend more money on drives.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Then you have two options:

1. Add a separate, single-disk pool.
2. Destroy and rebuild the pool with RAIDZ1.

 

[Jasper9714]

Then you have two options:

1. Add a separate, single-disk pool.
2. Destroy and rebuild the pool with RAIDZ1.

I was afraid of that, thanks.