Explanation why advocated redundancy is not realistic

[louis]

@Protopia

(I suppose you could create a RAIDZ1 now using the 2x16TB drives and a sparse file as the third drive - and then you immediately delete the sparse file, leading to a degraded pool which is essentially the same 2x 16TB stripe as you are proposing only with an ability to replace the missing sparse file with a 3rd physical drive later and resilvering to get the redundancy back. But this is definitely not any more recommended than the stripe you are considering and it does add some additional technicality to the solution.)

As written I now and then consider to combine the two 16G drives to on raid1. And that would imply I lose 50% capacity.

Your remark that a raid1 can hardly / not converted to a RAIDZ1 is an important one. Which make it even less attractive to go for a raid1

Your idea to create a crippled Z1 to overcome this, seems a good idea however has two drawbacks:

• the crippeld Z1 is less reliable then the actual situation, since a crippeld Z1 is I think nothing els as a RAID0. So if one drive fails I will lose every thing
• so for the time being it would be worse !! than the actual situation

And I would need a ^temporarily^ 16TB third drive during the Z1 setup which I do not have.

Related to your commend ^using a 500GB SATA as a boot drive Ditch that idea^. That is just the actual situation. And as written I detest the fact that I have to offer one SATA port for a boot drive. But that is more or less what it is.
(I understand that it is not a problem in case of a large professional server, but for a home nas it is just disgusting)

Implementing the redundancy you advocate is not a bad idea, but assuming I would like to have an option for a four drive Z1 (starting with three drive) the implication would be:

• new case
• extra 16TB drive
• get rid of the SATA-boot drive (The MB only have 4 sata ports)
• a lot of work

I think that price is too high for the extra redundancy, surely given the fact that

• files are available on an other machine and or the NAS second drive
• I have off-line backups
• doubleing the NVME’s SSD would cost an additional € 400
• the redundancy does not protect against mistakes from my side
• viruses etc
• damages to the NAS processor / ram / over voltages / etc

So I really have been thinking about your comments / ideas, and I am aware about professional redundancies, but this is a home machine and not a professional NAS.

Of course more redundancy would be nice, however as written before those requirements would at least double the cost of the NAS. So the only part I did consider a Z1 for the HD’s but as explained even apart form the cost, that is not realistic

[Davvo]

Can you also please explain me why you continue opening new threads? Iirc, it’s the third… this makes it incredibily challenging to follow and understand the discussion.

Anyway, if you have badly designed pools in your system, the best way to fix things would be to start from scrap… making a colander float is way harder than making a pot float, and has little point.

I won’t chime in any further, and I think many others will do the same: it’s not rewarding when someone asks for advice but does not want to listen.

[louis]

Oep! I was writing an replay when I got a button asking if I would prefer to write a private message to Protopia. So I pushed that button. So that was my intention. Not to open en new thread!!

[Davvo]

I fear this doesn’t seem to be a private message

Closing the thread then