ZFS RaidZ1 upgrade, temporary backup solution needed

[fumantsu]

Hi to all,

I gonna plan the upgrade of my 1,5TB 3 disk RaidZ1 pool by adding a new disk. I'm going to temporary backup to some other free disks I have and then recreate the pool and restore. Unfortunately the other disks are not in the same size (less 500GB) so I planning to use I much disk as I can to maximize the space. What to do you suggest? single disks? Software Raid0?

Also the new disk is a WD Red. I have heard that there is utility to raise/disable the intellipark feature. Except of this, the disk is also intellipower which I believe that means that runs either at 5400rpm or 7200rpm. Is any way to "lock" the speed to 7200rpm?

[crowi]

I believe that means that runs either at 5400rpm or 7200rpm.

No this means, your drive runs on 5405 rpm.
For disabling headparking on WD Reds, please read here: http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?thr ... exe.18171/

What to do you suggest? single disks? Software Raid0?

It depends how valuable the data is and if it matters if you loose it. I would never use RAID0 for backup.
Better create a RAID1 or ZFS mirror to backup your data, if this is not possible, then use single disks with the risk of losing one if the drive dies.

[fumantsu]

I think that the guide is exactly what I want to read. Thanks. Of course the mix between 3x 7200rpm and 1x "intelligent" disk that runs at 5405 I don't know if I gonna have impact to the performance.

As far for the data. It is only temporary. I will copy 1.4TB to the other disk, destroy the original pool, recreate it with 4 disks and copy back again the data. That's why I was thinking single drives or raid0 and now for example zfs raid0 (how it called I don't remember). Except if is faster to copy data between 2 zfs pools....