RAIDZ1 vs RAIDZ2 — 6×8 TB

You have 6 drives of 8 TB (48 TB raw) and are deciding between RAIDZ1 (ZFS single parity with checksums) and RAIDZ2 (ZFS double parity with checksums). The table shows what each choice actually gives you.

MetricRAIDZ1RAIDZ2
Usable capacity40 TB32 TB
Redundancy overhead8 TB16 TB
Storage efficiency83%67%
Fault tolerance (drives)12
Minimum drives34

RAIDZ1 gives you 8 TB more usable space on this configuration.

RAIDZ2 survives more simultaneous drive failures — with 6 drives of 8 TB, rebuild windows are long, and that margin is what saves the array when a second drive acts up mid-rebuild.

With drives of 8 TB and larger, single-parity rebuilds carry measurable URE risk — check yours in the rebuild calculator.

See it live

Open this exact configuration in the calculator and tweak drives, sizes and levels freely.

More comparisons