ZFS is based on a storage pool model. To use ZFS with your disks, you first need to create a ZFS pool. This initial step requires identifying which disks to use in the pool. To assist in this identification effort, ZEVO has a showdisks command that will show disks that are likely candidates for use with ZFS. This command will filter inappropriate disk devices like the boot disk, disks hosting user home directories or disks that are part of a storage pool or RAID set. Here’s an example of using the zpool showdisks command:
$ zpool showdisks DISK DEVICE SIZE CONNECTION DESCRIPTION /dev/disk1 1.82TiB SATA WDC WD20EURS-63S48Y0 Media /dev/disk2 1.82TiB SATA WDC WD20EURS-63S48Y0 Media
Once you have identified the disks that will comprise your storage pool you can use the zpool create command to create the pool. Below are some examples.
Two Disk Mirror Example
RAIDZ Example
Converting a Single Disk Pool into a Mirror
Mirrored Pair Example