SOLVED Setting up a vanilla 3-way mirror with a hot spare

[MMacD]

I've finally got the A1SRM-2558F, 16GB, a 16GB USB Sandisk thumb as a boot device (and a second to create a mirrored boot if indicated), and 4 brand-new 1TB WD enterprise-grade (yellow label) SATA disks. And I have an M1015 card partway through its conversion to an HBA, something I hope to be able to complete now that I have the Supermicro motherboard with a real EFI BIOS. As soon as I get my worktable cleared I'll be able to start staging the build. I also have a lot of discs in other machines that currently hold backup copies of files, some of them already a little decayed. Once I've found and moved good copies to the new server, I can purge the detritus and free up those discs for re-use.

But even after having spent much of a sleepless night reading the manual, I still don't know how to set up a vanilla 3-way mirror plus hot spare.

Part of the problem, I'm sure, is that I already know the existing meanings for terms like "volume", but they don't seem to be the same meanings ascribed in the FreeNAS world. Where I grew up, a "volume" is a logical disc made up of one or more physical discs. But under FreeNAS "volume" is a synonym (why?) for "zpool", and I'm pretty sure a zpool is just a pool of disc space that can be subdivided into logical discs. Unless a zpool is a pool of drives rather than of space. Are the "vdevs" the logical discs? No clue.

I don't want to just barge ahead because I'm afraid I'll end up with all 4 hard discs combined as a single logical drive rather than assigned as 3 logical drives united in a mirroring relationship plus a hot spare. The documentation seems to be very sparing with information about how to do such simple things, and the needlessly-opaque jargon doesn't help. Maybe once I get the system booted it will instantly become obvious how to set up the mirror, but I'd rather not count on it.

The screenshots in the manual don't give me the warm fuzzy feeling that All Will Be Revealed By The GUI. So I would be glad for some advice.

 

[SweetAndLow]

You log into the gui then go to the storage tab and create a volume. Then you select 3 way mirror from the drop down box.

Have you read the beginner slid show yet? That will have the best description of vdevs and volumes.

 

[joeschmuck]

My first advice it to do the proper burn-in testing on all your component. This means RAM testing, CPU testing, and Hard drive testing. Make sure you have a stable system before creating your pool and moving your data over to it.

Next, if I understand your question correctly you want a three drive mirror, that is easy to do but you must do it manually through the GUI, it's not an automatic setup option (@SweetAndLow already said how to). You do realize that your three drive mirror will only be as large as 1TB (minus the overhead)?

Lastly, I wouldn't install a hot spare as with a three drive mirror and establishing proper SMART testing, when a drive fails you will have plenty of time to replace the failed drive. Having a hot spare is just a way to wear out another drive. However I'd test that drive out the same as the other drives, make sure it works before shelving it.

 

[MMacD]

Thanks, both! It's very nice to know that, indeed, All Will Be Revealed by the GUI. I was worried.

You do realize that your three drive mirror will only be as large as 1TB (minus the overhead)?

Yes. I'm hoping to free up 3 other yellow-label drives first, and add them to make 2-drive volumes for 2TB toto. I'm pretty sure I won't overflow that.

Your point about not installing a hot spare is well-taken, my only worry being that the drives are all from the same batch regardless of the contortions I went thru to get them from different ones.

And that's good advice to do my own burn-in, something I don't usually bother to do. But since this server will afford the opportunity for a global failure, it's definitely a good idea to be sure that someone has checked for infant mortality beforetime.

 

[MMacD]

Have you read the beginner slid show yet? That will have the best description of vdevs and volumes.

I tried to read the pdf version, but it's somehow set up that it wants to display in the browser regardless of my settings, so I gave up trying to just download it.