Mirror Upgrade

My NAS is configured with two mirrors for file sharing (over SMB) with other Windows computers:

Disk	Size (MB)	Description	Device model	Virtual device	Pool	Dataset	Path	SMB Share
da0	1907730	Seagate Barracuda Green (AF)	ST2000DL003-9VT166	tank_mirror_0	tank	alex	/mnt/tank/alex/	alex
da1	1907730	Seagate Barracuda Green (AF)	ST2000DL003-9VT166			music	/mnt/tank/music/	music
da2	2861589	Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (AF)	ST3000DM001-1E6166	vault_mirror_1	vault	alex
da3	2861589	Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (AF)	ST3000DM001-1E6166			movies	/mnt/vault/movies	movies

I plan to purchase two 4TB drives to upgrade mirror vault.  Then after 30 or so days I will use these hard drives to upgrade mirror tank.
I did this successfully in the past.  This time I will document the procedure and will try to stay away from command line.

I powered down the system, installed new hard drive - there are plenty of empty positions available in the drive cages, powered the system up.
New drive da4 immediately appeared in Diagnostics\Information\Disks.
I go to Disk\Management,
da4 is not there.
I click Rescan Disks.
da4 appears.  I edit it to: set APM to 127,  activate SMART.
Apply changes.
I click Disk\Format, select da4 and specify ZFS.
Diagnostics\Information\Disks for da4 looks like this:

Device	Device model	Description	Size	Serial number	Rotation rate	Transfer rate	S.M.A.R.T.	Controller	Controller model	Temperature	Status
da4	ST4000VN000-1H4168	n/a	3815448MB	Z30150F6	5900 rpm	6.0 Gb/s	Available , Enabled	mps0	LSI SAS2008	35 °C	ONLINE

Time to add da4 to mirror vault.
This post outlines the steps involved in maintaining the mirror.  In a nutshell it recommends to take one disk offline and to add another thus replacing the first one.  I am a proponent of a different approach.  You add a 3rd disk to a mirror.  You leave it there for a while.  In the meantime not only old files are copied to the new disk.  Also all I/O operations are duplicated to 3rd disk and early failure might be detected.  If disk still works after 30 days, you can remove one of the older disks.  Add anew larger capacity disk.  Repeat.
The above approach relies on command

zpool add <existing pool> <device>

Unfortunately I found no way to issue it through GUI, thus the need to use command line:

Edit: nest post will be about a proper way to upgrade the mirror.

State of My Home LAN

Things settled here.  NAS4free proved to be fabulous.  Stable.  With regular updates steadily improving on visible cosmetics which gives me confidence in behind the scene work. Very convenient for use.  Therefore it is not surprising that I ran out space on the main pool I use to store video files.  I also need to add new storage to NAS and migrate photos and Lightroom catalog there.  My NAS box found its permanent place on a network shelf in the laundry room.  I love the case and the 3- and 4-drive racks are very convenient.  And, yes, they look just cool.
HTPC got a passive CPU cooler and the HD rack was removed to free space for it.  HTPC is still noisy though - 7k rpm HD and power supply can be easily heard.  But when music or movies are played it does not matter.  I doubt I will ever install SSD in this HTPC, if only to cut on noise.  Can I even migrate the existing Windows 7 install to SSD?  I remember reading that this NVidia disk controller does not handle SSD well.  I suspect the main culprit is power supply fan anyway.

NAS4free - Minor GUI Improvement

I love NAS4Free GUI.  It shows information I am interested in and is highly usable.  A minor change (removal of an outer frame below the toolbar) makes the GUI cleaner.  Here is an animated show with before/after examples.

Hardware, New Iteration

Here is my new NAS box:

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 65nm E4300 Allendale 1.8GHz 800MHz FSB LGA 775 65W
• Motherboard: MSI G41M-P25 with Intel G41 video, Intel ICH7 south bridge with 4x SATA2 ports and Realtek 8111DL gigabit Ethernet controller.
• RAM: 2x4GB DDR3 1333mhz PC3-10666
• HBA:  I am playing with HDs connected to motherboard's ICH7.  I also have an IBM M1015 (with cables) re-flashed to LSI9211-IT.
• HDs:
    mirror of 2xSeagate Barracuda Green 2TB ST2000DL003,
    assorted drives for tests, all in this 4-bay and this 3-bay rack.  Fan controlled by this gadget.
• DVDROM: attached only for new installation, not enough external bays to have it full time.
• PSU: Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D Green 380W
• Case: Cooler Master Gladiator 600
• UPS: APC BACK-UPS ES BE550G connected to USB port

Interestingly enough, this configuration refused to boot with both memory sticks installed.  Overclocking from 200MHz to 266MHz solves the problem.  I conclude that the memory is just too fast for such a slow CPU.  As a result CPU runs at 2.3GHz.  Not a big deal, given that SpeedStep throttles it down most of the time anyway.
Setup ssh.

NAS4Free, Take2, Success!

I fixed it!  That Samba crash I had while reading data from NAS - it is fixed!
I recreated mirror zpool, redid all CIFS/SMB settings, recreated shares, restarted the service and it just works!  Let me dig deeper to figure out what exactly had the effect!

Open Indiana, Take2

While nas4free is being solidified  - samba crash there takes all the wind out of my excitement - I am giving another try to (Samba-free!) OpenIndiana 151a.  I have very high hopes for kernel-based CIFS support. This time a new storage adapter (IBM M1015 re-flashed to LSI9211-IT) is plugged in but not connected - the cables are still on a slow boat from China.
As before, the default install pukes on X boot.  Choosing VESA helps.  More than that, this time it just boots in native 1280x1024!  Last time I spent hours trying to achieve this.  And now it just happens with no effort on my part.  This time I also have a pair of Barracuda Greens connected.  My plan is to create a mirrored zpool and check out file transfer speeds between NAS and Windows 7 htpc. I will take another shot at enabling SMART and SpeedStep!

Sanity Checks

Nas4free seems to be most suited to my requirements, but samba there just crashes on me.  In the meantime I am collecting network and hard drives throughput data on Windows.
HTPC runs Windows 7, NAS in this test runs Windows Vista. Both use Intel 82540EM PRO/1000 MT PCI NICs.
Rate of data copying between two internal SATA2 drives on HTPC: windows copy dialog shows 120MB/sec in the beginning of the copy process.  By the end it falls down to 87MB/sec.
Writing to NAS (to 300MB Seagate HD) is done at a rate of 43MB/sec.
Reading from NAS is done at a rate of 40MB/sec.
iperf bandwidth measurement between HTPC and another Windows PC is about 38MB/sec.  Enabling jumbo frames (or changing their size from 4k to 9k) has no effect at all.  I have no idea why the bandwidth is so low.  I ordered a CAT6 cable and will try one more time bandwidth tests with two windows PCs connected directly with no switch in between.
EDIT: later I determined that PCI NICs are the bottleneck!

Todo:

• install syslog on the LAN to collect debugging info, e.g.  syslog-win32
• Experiment with Wake-on-LAN - here is client which would wake NAS up.

While waiting for the production version of firmware to materialize and production HBA to show up on my door step I was pondering over the hard drive use strategy.  Should I go with RAIDZ?  Given that the NAS cage can hold up to 4 drivers, and I do not plan to expand, my options are limited to RAIDZ and MIRROR.  Here are two good articles on the subject.  Decided!  I will go with a mirror of two Barracuda Green 2TB drives.