Quick & Easy: Setting up ZFS raidz on Ubuntu

Simple guide to ZFS

Install zfs

sudo apt install zfs-dkms zfs-zed zfsutils-linux

Locate the drives you want into your array

sudo ls /dev/disk/by-id | grep "ata"

Create raidz1 (similar to raid5) Samba/CIFS Pool for Windows Clients

zpool create -O casesensitivity=insensitive data raidz1 device1 device2 device3 device4

zfs get casesensitivity data

check pool status sudo zpool status

verify the pool with scrub sudo zpool scrub data

Cancel a scrub sudo zpool scrub -s data

add weekly scrub task to crontab

sudo crontab -l | { cat; echo "@monthly zpool scrub data"; } | crontab -

add scrub task on reboot to crontab

sudo crontab -l | { cat; echo "@reboot sleep 25 && zpool scrub data"; } | crontab -

Samba Config

[data]
path = /data
read only = no
browsable = yes
guest ok = no
writable = yes
case sensitive = yes

replace failed drive

sudo ls /dev/disk/by-id/ | grep "ata"
sudo zpool replace data old-disk new-disk
sudo watch -n1 zpool status

Tweaks to improve Samba & small files access

• zfs set xattr=sa data
• http://www.nerdblog.com/2013/10/zfs-xattr-tuning-on-linux.html
• zfs set atime=off data
• https://www.unixtutorial.org/zfs-performance-basics-disable-atime/

destroy the pool (REMOVES DATA!)

sudo zpool destroy data (removes data!)

More Resources

• Checking ashift on existing pools – charsiurice (wordpress.com)
• https://blog.khmersite.net/2013/09/changing-zfs-pool-to-use-disk-id-instead-of-disk-assignment/
• https://www.unixtutorial.org/getting-started-with-zfs-ubuntu-20-04/
• https://thesmarthomejourney.com/2022/02/07/zfs-alert-via-pushover/
• https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E36784_01/html/E36835/gbctx.html
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23455772

Samba

• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/How to Create a Network Share Via Samba Via CLI (Command-line interface/Linux Terminal) - Uncomplicated, Simple and Brief Way!
• https://forums.unraid.net/topic/97165-smb-performance-tuning/