***Noob*** ZFS Mirror Installation Questions - Please help!

[Badante]

Ok. I have a new Protectli 6-Port Vault with a 120GB SSD, 32GB DDR4, i7 processor, and a 1TB SSD I want to mirror for a backup. It took me about 20 minutes to screw everything up, I think.
I downloaded the latest OPNsense and ran it. I chose ZFS as my installation option. I don't know what I was thinking. How do I partition the 1TB drive so that I have a 120GB to use as the mirror and the balance to use for other purposes? I am connected to the OPNsense GUI via 192.168.1.1 so it works but I have lost 880GB. I know I am missing something simple.

How can I partition my 1TB and reinstall the ZFS?

[bartjsmit]

A mirror does not provide backup. If you (or a glitch) mangle your setup, it will be bad on both disks.

Install on the 120 GB and backup your config XML to the 1 TB by cron job. That will give you the ability to go back to an earlier config - much like option 13 in the console.

Bart...

[Badante]

Ok. Thank you. This is all completely new to me so I am stumbling around in the dark.

[Patrick M. Hausen]

You could also just perform a mirrored installation on both drives from the installer. That will use only the size of the smaller drive on the larger one, leaving the rest alone for other uses.

Another alternative is to copy the partition table on the command line and attach the second drive's ZFS partition to build a mirror also on the command line. If you can still perform a fresh installation, that's still way simpler.

But then I wonder - what would you want with that extra disk space on a firewall appliance? It's not really a good idea to run any applications on that system. And as with any appliance - backup means saving the configuration. If the internal storage ever breaks, replace, reinstall, restore config - all up and running again. If your availability requirements are higher, a second unit either as a HA pair or at least on the shelf is way more important than redundant storage.

HTH,
Patrick