I’m setting up TrueNas scale as a backup server as well as to host some other services and VM’s that will use an SSD.
I have 3x4TB WD Reds. SMR unfortunately. Not a lot of use on them. I didn’t pay for them, so I’m trying to make the most of it. I assume my only decent option is Raid1Z? Would it be worth buying another 4TB drive, not SMR, and doing Raid2Z? Something else?
The only half-decent option on with SMR drives is to use them in classical RAID5 or RAID6. But not ZFS.
If you buy drives, go larger than 4 TB.
I’ll probably just replace them. Why go larger? What I’d like to do is buy 4 drives and go RaidZ2 with plans to expand.
I use Seagate Archive HDD’s (SMR) in 6 disks in RAIDZ2 for my replication backup. One of the disk had to be RMA and was replaced with a non SMR EXOS drive.
I have no compatibility issues due to the mix of SMR and CMR. The only downside of SMR in my case is the extended replication time when dealing with iocage jail root datasets.
For a backup solution, I don’t see it to be a problem.
If you want to add another drive, I would recommend a regular CMR drive.
WD SMR drives may behave differently though.
I see no justification for SMR drives, whatsoever.
They don’t even hold the high ground on “lower prices”, when you consider how you can get CMR, (sometimes helium-filled), enterprise drives at 2X-3X the capacity for only a small additional premium on the price.
Resilvering on SMR drives is an absolute nightmare.
Price per terabyte…
