Started building a new NAS and one of my SATA drives had the data connection break. Two questions since I am brand new to TrueNAS
If I order one and add it later, will it just expand the pool? Normal RAID 5 will not but I know TNAS does not use that.
Local Best Buy has one in stock but it’s 5400 RPM, that would slow down the entire RAID, will it not?
If I can order one from Amazon and expand it later, I would rather order a 7200.
Thanks!
I think you can expand the storage, has anyone done this? Work well?
Yes, the latest version of ZFS used in the latest versions of TrueNAS allow expanding RAID-Zx vDevs. Existing data will not change it’s data to parity ratio, but new data will use the additional data to parity ratio.
Meaning if you start with 4 disks in a RAID-Z1, you get 3 data disks and 1 parity disk. (Not dedicated parity disk, just conceptually.) If you expand by 1 disk, newly written data will get 4 data disks and 1 parity disk. However, previously written data will remain at 3 data disks & 1 parity disk. Less efficiently stored, but fully intact.
Using RAID-Z1 with larger disks and higher quantity of disks is generally not recommended. When you loose a disk, you have zero data redundancy until you replace it. So any new failure, block or disk, causes data loss or entire pool loss.
Some hard drives listed as 5400 RPM are not really that speed. They are that “class of speed”, marketing talk about NAS drives. It is confusing and you have to do your research.
Thanks!
