I'm rebuilding a file server that I previously had running. I'm going with a clean reinstall using ubuntu 16.04.1. I've installed everything on top of ZFS and have put 4x 4TB drives in the system and created a zpool with 2x 8TB mirrors.
I need advice deciding how best to utilize this storage pool. What I was doing before the reinstall was to link the owncloud data dir to a folder on an external drive, but I frequently had issues with permissions. What I would like is to be able to have owncloud's data on the 8TB drive array, but also be able to access all of that data through FTP or whatever else.
Would it be of any advantage to create another zpool residing on the drives that has a mountpoint of owncloud's default data dir (I think it's /var/www/owncloud/data), or does it make any difference if I just link the data dir to the drive array like I did before? I figure that if I set it up using another pool then I could take snapshots of just owncloud data and leave the rest of the array alone. Or, I don't know, maybe something else. I'm not sure how best to manage it and take advantage of ZFS' features, etc.
One more question regarding snapshots:
Taking snapshots recursively includes pools inside of pools, while not indicating -r when taking snapshots excludes them, correct? I've read pages of documentation, but I'm still a little unsure.
kh