Looking for suggestions on media storage.

jmgibson1981 · 01-25-2021, 01:44 PM

I've been using MergerFS with Snapraid for some time. It's 99% media storage. Dvd rips + mp3s with the occasional mp[34]. It's worked well enough. Here is my current layout.

Code:

NAME            MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda               8:0    0 931.5G  0 disk
└─sda1            8:1    0 931.5G  0 part
  ├─main-debian 254:0    0   300G  0 lvm  /
  ├─main-swap   254:1    0   1.9G  0 lvm  [SWAP]
  └─main-root   254:2    0   250G  0 lvm
sdb               8:16   0 465.8G  0 disk
└─sdb1            8:17   0 465.8G  0 part /snapraid/data/data4
sdc               8:32   0 698.7G  0 disk
└─sdc1            8:33   0 698.7G  0 part /snapraid/data/data2
sdd               8:48   0   1.8T  0 disk
└─sdd1            8:49   0   1.8T  0 part /snapraid/data/data1
sde               8:64   0   1.8T  0 disk
└─sde1            8:65   0   1.8T  0 part
sdf               8:80   0 232.9G  0 disk
└─sdf1            8:81   0 232.9G  0 part /snapraid/data/data3
sdg               8:96   0   1.8T  0 disk
└─sdg1            8:97   0   1.8T  0 part
sdh               8:112  0   1.8T  0 disk
└─sdh1            8:113  0   1.8T  0 part

2 of the unmounted 2tb (1.8) are my snapraid parity drives, the other is the failed disk I've yet to remove. main-root is my old ubuntu installation. switched to debian a week ago or so.

The other day I did my first disk replacement and I went ahead and did a rebuild from parity. It took 20+ hours for a 2tb disk. I could probably speed that up by going with internal drives for my parity but it got me to thinking. Do I really need snapraid? For that matter while I have a total of 3.2 tb in my pool with 2.3 used is this just overcomplicated. Would I be better off just doing a raid 1 with hot spare of 4tb drives? Or even zfs mirrored vdev?

I'm trying to look for ways to simplify really and that rebuild time was a long time. Looking for opinions the best course?

*EDIT* Forgot to note that the main thing that got me debating my setup is when I restored that snapraid disk I had to chase down the permissions and such. Pretty basic for my use case but it just was a little annoying. I figured it would backup bit by bit. Guess it skipped those.

frankbell · 01-26-2021, 10:11 PM

I can't comment on snapraid, as I have no knowledge of it. But I am curious about one thing:

Code:

├─main-debian 254:0    0   300G  0 lvm  /
  ├─main-swap   254:1    0   1.9G  0 lvm  [SWAP]
  └─main-root   254:2    0   250G  0 lvm

What is the different between "main-debian" and "main-root"? They seem to have an awful lot of space allocated to them.

syg00 · 01-27-2021, 12:24 AM

We can't tell you the best course for you - depends on your pain threshold (apparently low), and what you are trying to protect against.
My initial thoughts are along the lines of "it's just ripped media, who cares ?". But it you do really care, as I do for all my (old) photos, then you have to decide what's acceptable risk. I'm presuming no backups - for me that's an unacceptable risk. If you can simply re-rip it all, then it may be acceptable in your case.
FWIW I use btrfs RAID6 and have for years, along with (at least) 3 full backups. Why 3 ? - so I can merge them using ddrescue should the need arise. Backups go bad too ... :shrug: