Title basically. I have like 7tb of data on my current raid array, and in the future, I plan to wipe it and make it ZFS, with 3 additional 7tb drives. I’d like to not lose all the data. I’m sure I can’t be the only one who has this issue. What do you guys use for temporary backup solution, while repurposing your HW.
My current server runs Ubuntu server bare metal. I’m thinking of running Proxmox, than VM of TrueNAS, for ZFS, sharing the storage pool across, what would than be a Proxmox cluster of 2 machines (potentially a 3rd in the future). I think that this is probably the best way.
Can’t you setup a new array with your new 3 drives, copy the data over, then expand your array with your old drives? IIRC zfs added support for expanding pools last year or so?
If you want to use a cloud provider, then your main problem will be uploading this much data and then downloading it back again, both price and time wise.
An easier solution is in fact copying the data over to another storage. Maybe borrow some pendrives from friends/family?
If you want to use a cloud provider, then your main problem will be uploading this much data and then downloading it back again, both price and time wise.
If you happen to have a symmetric gig pipe (or larger) that definitely helps :) I currently have 27 TBs in the cloud, for most of it, it was just easier to re-download it since the cloud VM had a 10 gig pipe compared to my gig down and 30 Mbps up (cries in Comcast…I moved and now I have access to AT&T fiber at up to 5 Gbps, its like $250/month though). I thnk I’m gonna move everything back locally, doing everything in the cloud was a temporary solution for when I lived with my parents for a few months. They weren’t too happy about the electricity bill of my 15 HDD, 8 NVME drive, 2x10G nic, 128 GB ECC, 1KW PSU running a Threadripper 2970wx, liquid cooled of course …and then having the AC running 24/7 to keep i cool. I had all of that crammed in a 4U server, which was pared down from my larger on which I was using at my other apartment.
with could storage I find I’m able to download large files from the webUI, but I could attach the bucket and just get the data from here.
Expanding an array does work but you get less usable space compared to starting a new array from scratch. The old data doesn’t get restriped so you get a less efficient parity-to-data ratio, and this effect accumulates as you add more drives.
Convince a friend that they need a storage solution, buy the drives for them, use them temporarily and make a friend really happy and slightly poorer.
The Friend get to smile more with all that data to consume?
Why no just setup 2 3 drive vdevs and combine them into a pool. Ie. One vdev, copy your data. Add the old drives as a second vdev and add it to the pool?
Digital Ocean has by the hour rates. You could create a droplet with attached volumes. I’m not sure what the limits are on volumes, but you can probably attach more than one. Then you can just delete it all when done.
Burn 3,192 DVDs
This is the way!
offtopic, what data do you store? Photos? I was always curious about people who use a lot of storage
Photography RAWS mostly. Only about a tb. Then Home assistant and the proxmox VMS, family pics. One day security camera. Still need to pick a nas as mine is 3copies on a das. I’d like plex or jellyfin transcoding 4 bay. Or a low power 1ru. Don’t think they exist.
Mdadm can be set up with one drive. Then just add the second drive after data transfer.
Buy a single external, use it as a backup after migrating.
Download backblaze trial.
This is probably ugly but could go the Microsoft Family 365. 5tb; 1Tb per account joined. The thing can be paid monthly and well. Sorry. I will now go wash the dishes and cry in the corner for such suggestion. 😂🙈
It’s black Friday this week, see what deals you can get on a 20TB usb drive and use that as temporary storage…
Sorry to be this guy but do you not have a backup of your data? This would solve this and other potential future issues.
You can get a hetzner 20TB storage box for ~40$. Accessible over the internet via SMB. I get 1gig read/write, my internet doesn’t handle more so not really sure what’s the limits
If you are comfortable in answering which country/region are you from?
I barely get speeds over 5-10mbps(1MB/s) with symmetrical gig personal connection from Asia/SEA region which I assume is due to poor routing and peering issues.
Make a backup, set the new drives as a LVM, move over the files and grow the fs to use the emptied discs.
You do have backup disks, don’t you?
Tarsnap