The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/phul_colons on 2024-09-27 00:13:15.
Current setup:
- 8x16TB raidz2 on Ubuntu Server
- 6x8TB, 4x10TB Drivepool on Windows 10
I want a 3rd version directly attached to my M1 Max Macbook. I have 2x14TB, 12TB, 2x8TB to work with and a 5 bay Sabrent USB-C DAS.
I've tried
- open ZFS on macOS. I get a kernel panic and sudden restart as soon as I start heavy IO. The whole system becomes fairly unusable before that panic occurs. Single digit refresh rate on the screen, no input from keyboard/trackpad. I tried with raw disk partitions and using sparse files stored on APFS/case sensitive/encrypted containers.
- APFS containers with multiple disks. There's no redundancy available. No performance benefits to pooling multiple disks together. No replacement strategy for failed disks.
- DiskUtility software RAID with JBOD. Disks are filled one-at-a-time and the dimension cannot be modified after it's created to allow for expansion. Disks cannot be read independent of their grouping. One disk failure and you lose the whole thing. Zero performance benefit on reads or writes.
- Standard APFS with some kind of disk pooling strategy. MergerFS does not work on macOS. There is no native pooling option either. symlinks don't work with Syncthing, which I'm using to keep all 3 systems in sync.
- Passing the disks to a VM, using ZFS, then sharing back over SMB. It is simply too cumbersome, especially with the apple silicon architecture. Nothing reliably works and even test scenarios are painstakingly difficult to set up. Virtualization seems to have taken a decade step backwards on apple silicon.
- Docker desktop. No option on mac/Windows to pass USB devices like you can on linux.
What I want in descending priority order:
- Disk pooling so I can sync my 20TB folder
- Options for redundancy, either mirroring or striping.
- Options for replacement of failed disks.
- Options for expansion.
- Performance benefits afforded by using multiple disks.
Encryption is a requirement, but I'm not willing to use file-level encryption like encfs or similiar. The only thing I haven't tried yet is SnapRAID, but if disk pooling doesn't work then I'm not interested at all.
I'm at my wits' end with this. I'm convinced macOS simply has no options available for multi-disk storage needs. Can anyone share something that has worked for them?
edit: I'm experimenting now with the native RAID assistant, making two JBOD arrays and then mirroring them to form a 28TB mirrored drive at the end (14/14 TB JBOD mirrored with 12/8/8 TB JBOD)
edit2: So I've currently got this setup going:
(14-14 TB JBOD) mirrored with (12-8-8 TB JBOD) APFS, case-sensitive, encrypted container
Write speeds: 150 MB/sec Read speeds: 200 MB/sec
This may be workable, I'll test it for a while and see how far it gets me. Thanks for reading.
edit 3: settling on 14-14 TB raid0 + rsync to 12-8-8 TB jbod using the macOS RAID assistant.
Write: 450 MB/sec Read: 400 MB/sec
This gives me great local performance + a full backup. 28TB usable space.