Configuration for ZFS pool

[gcakici]

I've a 12 slot Supermicro chassis and have 12 x 1TB Samsung PRO SSD drives.

Configuring them for ZFS pool, which one is better to go?

2 VDEVs striped, each has 6 drives with raidz2, usable space 8 drives

1 VDEV with 11 drives with raidz3, usable space 8 drives

Also I have an Intel P3700 PCI 400GB NVMe to put as an L2ARC

Both configurations are without ZIL.

Thanks/Gokalp

 

[Klaus Steinberger]

performance will be lower with Z3 and just one vdev, so I personally would prefer the 2 x Z2 vdevs combined (striping of vdevs not mirroring!)

 

[gcakici]

performance will be lower with Z3 and just one vdev, so I personally would prefer the 2 x Z2 vdevs combined (striping of vdevs not mirroring!)

Yes striped, my mistake. Thanks

 

[guletz]

Hi,

Maybe you ask what you want to get, and not what is better (from what point of view). Any vdev config is a mix of total storage capacity, IOPs, write/read speed,
and resiliency.

 

[chalex]

if 6TB usable is enough then 6 mirror pairs will get you best performance.

 

[gcakici]

if 6TB usable is enough then 6 mirror pairs will get you best performance.

Although it's enough capacity, redundancy is lower with this configuration and that's a priority. Thank you tough.

 

[guletz]

If the redundancy is your primary goal, then you could make a combination using a 3 way mirror with 3 SSD (instead of 2). In term of safety is the same as raidz2.

 

[guletz]

Another good strategy is to keep 1 or 2 SSD as spare disk for your pool, so in case that one SSD is broken, your pool have the ability to auto-replace the broken SSD. Then, in time, you could also change the spare SSD with an active SSD in a round robin style(so each ssd will be use as active member, and some time as spare disk)