Implementing tiered storage with ZFS and autotier

published Nov 20, 2020, last modified Dec 01, 2020

An uncommon — but not unheard of — use case calls for fast data ingestion, combined with relatively slow yet very big and economical data retrieval. Here is a plan to achieve that.

The scenario

  • You have an SSD which you want to use to boost write speeds of incoming data from users.
  • You have one or more rotational drives which you want to use to store the data more long-term.

The recipe

  • Create a ZFS pool for your rotational drives, with the RAID level you require.
  • Create a ZFS pool on your SSD.
  • Use autotier to mount a FUSE file system that will use your SSD tier and your rotational drives tier.
Keywords
ZFS tips storage Linux HOWTO