From owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Oct 16 05:13:22 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8BB051065673 for ; Sun, 16 Oct 2011 05:13:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from batrick@batbytes.com) Received: from mail-iy0-f182.google.com (mail-iy0-f182.google.com [209.85.210.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 650808FC19 for ; Sun, 16 Oct 2011 05:13:22 +0000 (UTC) Received: by iaky10 with SMTP id y10so5751322iak.13 for ; Sat, 15 Oct 2011 22:13:21 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.42.158.136 with SMTP id h8mr28297990icx.22.1318740351026; Sat, 15 Oct 2011 21:45:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.231.19.66 with HTTP; Sat, 15 Oct 2011 21:45:50 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 00:45:50 -0400 Message-ID: From: Patrick Donnelly To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Subject: [ZFS] Using SSD with partitions X-BeenThere: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Filesystems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 05:13:22 -0000 Hi list, I've got an array for home use where my boot drive (UFS) finally died. I've decided to upgrade to a SSD for a replacement but am looking to maybe simultaneously improving performance of my ZFS array. Naturally a FreeBSD install doesn't use much space so partitioning the drive to get maximum usage seems wise. I was thinking for a hypothetical 40GB drive: 20GB -- FreeBSD / partition 2GB -- ZFS ZIL 18GB -- ZFS Cache What I'm wondering is if this will be a bad idea. I know that SSDs are not designed to be written to *a lot*, which a ZIL will experience. Is this a bad idea? I'm hoping for experiences from people in similar scenarios. As I'm not an enterprise IT person who can't simply choose to just throw more mon-- I mean SSDs -- at the problem, I need to be efficient. :) [I'm thinking the cache drive partition might be pointless as I don't think I'd benefit that much from it.] Disclaimer: I've looked at a lot of guides, including the standard best practices guide, and none of it seemed helpful for my particular problem, especially given that I'm using FreeBSD. Thanks for any advice, -- - Patrick Donnelly