Creating an Atom ZFS Box

So as you have probably worked out, I have a soft spot for ZFS. There is a lot of good things about it including the ability to grow.

I have a nice little NAS / Backup solution which uses an Atom quad core with 4 gig ram and 3 x 3TB disks.

Setup instructions:

OS Installation

Installation of the OS is simple. 

Ubuntu Server. Simple as that. 

Partitioning. 

/dev/sda

    1mb - BIOS reserve 

    1 gig - /boot 

    20 gig - / 

Leave the rest blank.

/dev/sdb

    6 gig swap 

/dev/sdc

    Nothing. 

Package Selection

• Ubuntu Server 
• Openssh Server

Post Installation

Once you have installed the OS you need to configure the rest of the disks. You may need to play with the numbers slightly here but the following should be able to be copied / pasted.

# Partitioning

parted /dev/sda mkpart none 21.0G 3001G

parted /dev/sdb mkpart none 21.0G 3001G

parted /dev/sdc mklabel gpt

parted /dev/sdc mkpart none 21.0G 3001G

#Install Software

apt-get install python-software-properties

add-apt-repository ppa:zfs-native/stable

apt-get update

apt-get install ubuntu-zfs

# Setup the Raid.

rm -rf /home

zpool create tank -m /home raidz /dev/sda4 /dev/sdb2 /dev/sdc1

#Create a vmware backup partition

zfs create tank/vmware-backup

zfs set compression=on tank/vmware-backup

## new setting thats being tested for a performance increase

## moves certain attributes like acls to inodes instead of a file in a hidden folder

zfs set xattr=sa tank