Recommended Storage Type, RAID vs No RAID, ZFS vs no ZFS (2024)

FAQs

Should I use RAID or ZFS? ›

ZFS is known for its excellent data integrity, while Linux RAID offers a more cost-effective solution. XFS RAID is the most advanced solution, offering features such as dynamic striping and snapshot technology. Let's compare these three RAID solutions' features and benefits.

Performance: ZFS RAID support and 128-bit scalability offer better performance compared to Btrfs. The LZ4 compression algorithm used in ZFS is faster than the zlib used in the Btrfs file system.

And so you can think of ZFS as volume manager and a RAID array in one, which allows extra disks to be added to your ZFS volume which allows extra space to be added to your file system all at once. So ZFS includes all typical RAID levels that you normally will come to expect, they just go by different names.

raid 1 is a mirrored setup, each nvme drive is a full copy of the other so if one fails, the system can continue to function. raid 0 is a striped setup, each nvme drive holds only half of the data so if one fails, the system will fail and all data is lost.

It's okay for most use case except slow first time open of applications. But for demanding games it usually has very bad performance. * ZFS also manage cache by itself so it needs some memory.

Raid Z1 is the best 4 drive raid for 1/3x write performance, 3x read performance, able to lose any 1 drive. 4. Raid Z2 is the best 4 drive raid for 1/4x write performance, 2x read performance, able to lose any 2 drives.

As a result, ZFS is more suited for more advanced users like developers who constantly move data around different disks and servers. Regardless of your choice of volume manager, you can always use both LVM and ZFS to manage your data across disks and servers when you move onto a VPS platform as well.

ZFS has proven to be highly reliable. Ext4 became a widely used file system because of its ability to manage large files and being a *reliable* file system. While it may not have all the advanced features of ZFS, it is generally faster and lighter, making it a good choice for many common workloads.

ZFS depends heavily on memory, so you need at least 8GB to start. In practice, use as much as you can get for your hardware/budget. To prevent data corruption, we recommend the use of high quality ECC RAM. If you use a dedicated cache and/or log disk, you should use an enterprise class SSD.

ZFS and OpenZFS can make point-in-time copies of the file system with great efficiency and speed because the system retains all copies of the data. Snapshots are immutable copies of the file system, while clones can be modified.

How many drives can you lose in RAIDZ2? ›

ZFS's equivalent is RAIDZ2. It is a fairly safe RAID level because it has the ability to withstand two drive failures and still rebuild, meaning if one fails you can still withstand another drive failure before or while rebuilding without losing your pool.

Coupled with inline compression and inline compaction technologies, ZFS significantly reduces the overall storage footprint - especially helpful for increasing SSD storage efficiency when highly-repetitive data or massive small files are generated.

Since the data is split evenly between all the drives on the array, there is absolutely no redundancy. Because of this zero-fault tolerance, if one drive fails, all the data on the array is lost. That means RAID 0 is actually less reliable than using a single disk. RAID 0 failure is a real possibility.

ZFS stands out from other RAID types by integrating a file system. It combines the functionalities of a volume manager and a RAID array, allowing for the expansion of the ZFS volume and the file system by adding extra disks.

The best RAID configuration for your storage system will depend on whether you value speed, data redundancy or both. If you value speed most of all, choose RAID 0. If you value data redundancy most of all, remember that the following drive configurations are fault-tolerant: RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6 and RAID 10.

Due to the allocation of half of the storage capacity for mirroring, RAID 10 has a high overhead, and the loss of two drives in the same mirrored pair results in data loss.

Protect against bit rot and bad or broken disk writes

ZFS has an innovative way of enhancing data integrity and handling bit-rot, the stale and corrupted data that develops slowly over time in large datasets.

RAID is extremely useful if uptime and availability are important to you or your business. Backups will help insure you from a catastrophic data loss. But, restoring large amounts of data, like when you experience a drive failure, can take many hours to perform.

The big advantage of ZFS over storing a file checksum in a bag or database is that corruption is detected and repaired. The block/checksum hierarchy makes it easier to detect whether it is the checksum itself that is corrupted.