Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 12:55:31 +0100 From: Volker <volker@vwsoft.com> To: JoaoBR <joao@matik.com.br> Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Fresh install on gmirror'ed disks? Message-ID: <440D74B3.3030309@vwsoft.com>
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> On Friday 03 March 2006 23:45, Mark Kirkwood wrote: >> > >> > I would certainly see the installer handling software RAID as a >> > considerable benefit. >> > >> > From what I've seen on the net, to install and boot off RAIDed syst= em >> > disks is quite fiddly (maybe gmirror is the exception here, as I've >> > mainly been looking at striping). >> > >> > Cheers >> > >> > Mark >=20 > geom changed this complications definitely, using gmirror or gstripe co= mmands=20 > is easy as copying a file. Probably one of the most important things th= at=20 > with vinum as example it was not possible to mirror a root partition bu= t=20 > since gmirror places the metadata different we can have now a mirrored = and=20 > bootable root partition. Striping with ccd and vinum or mirroring was=20 > certainly a pain even if it worked then stable and reliable. So in comp= arism=20 > the easy use of geom is great and the people which developed geom did a= =20 > really fantastic job. >=20 > Jo=E3o >=20 Joao, I do agree that gmirror is not that bad and not that difficult. But take a look at how to setup a fresh system using gmirror (slice by slice mirroring): - install a complete system to a fresh disc - create the (well sized) slices on a 2nd disc (not that easy) - create the gmirror set on disc 2 - bring gmirror up - copy all filesystems over to the gmirror set - reboot - create exactly sized slices on disc 1 - insert everything into the gmirror set Using that procedure you're going to copy each installed file three times (install, copy to mirror, sync mirror). That's a waste of time compared to a solution where the installer would be able to install directly into a mirror. When using disc based gmirror (instead of per slice gmirror) the procedure is a bit easier, but similar. If one could create a gmirror set before installing the base system and tell the installer to install into gmX instead of adX/daX, the whole procedure would be much easier and would take less time. I've had to setup a handful of fresh systems over the last months and it was a pain to manually setup gmirror on each fresh system. Greetings, Volker
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