From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Dec 24 15:36:46 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA09544 for questions-outgoing; Wed, 24 Dec 1997 15:36:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions) Received: from gdi.uoregon.edu (cisco-ts12-line10.uoregon.edu [128.223.150.142]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA09531 for ; Wed, 24 Dec 1997 15:36:42 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu) Received: from localhost (dwhite@localhost) by gdi.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.8) with SMTP id PAA10226; Wed, 24 Dec 1997 15:36:32 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 15:36:32 -0800 (PST) From: Doug White X-Sender: dwhite@localhost Reply-To: Doug White To: Studded cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New scsi disk config help please In-Reply-To: <34A17781.A47C076@dal.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Wed, 24 Dec 1997, Studded wrote: > First off let me say that if this subject is better treated on -scsi or > -hardware feel free to follow up there. I'm on both lists, but I'm > trying to break my cross-posting habit. :) Also, what I'm doing here > might be more complicated than it needs to be, but please bear with me > since this is my first real scsi disk, and I'm fairly excited. :) It's actually better treated on the website. :-) > 1. Does my plan sound reasonable? I've been following things on the > lists here for a while now, and I think I've planned for the best > possible use of the two disks, but this isn't really my area. Sure. > 2. Which filesystem should go on the "slow" IDE disk, /usr/obj or > /usr/src? And will the make world benefits of having those two > filesystems on different disks be worth it when one of them is IDE? If > it makes any difference, the IDE drive is alone on its bus, with a > CD-ROM on the other bus. I'd put /usr/obj over. As long as src and obj are on different disks, you'll get the performance increase you're looking for. > 3. Is it at all desirable/necessary to split slices on a hard disk on > physical platter boundaries? Don't even try this level of optimization; you don't know where anyting will land anyway. Let the OS optimize for you. > 4. Rather than blow away the last few months of work in the freebsd > installation I have, I was thinking of installing freebsd all new on the > scsi disk, then moving parts from the old installation to the new one. If you want to go to that level of work. When I bought my 2gig SCSI, I formatted it as one giant partition, left the main OS on the IDE and moved filesystems that are going to grow, particularly /usr/local, on over and symlinked them across. This way I didn't have to muck with the booting details. > 5. If I'm understanding things correctly, FreeBSD's UFS is using a 4k > inode size. Has anyone done any studies on whether this is optimal or > not? Probably, or else they wouldn't have picked it. :) I suspect there are papers out there in obscurity where people have measured performance on various inode sizes and numbers. It depends a lot on your load though; news servers need more inodes. I suspect the default is pretty optimal for your ``average'' system. > 6. When I install FreeBSD on the scsi disk, any suggestions on sizes of > the partitions? Obviously I won't have to worry too much about space, > but I'd prefer not to waste any if possible. I want to install the > linuxulator, and just about everything else. :) It's completely up to you. > Anything else I should be thinking of? I would really like to get this > right the first time, so I am very open to suggestions. Any help will be > greatly appreciated. Read http://www.freebsd.org/tutorials/diskformat/ when you get to the actual formatting part. Doug White | University of Oregon Internet: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu | Residence Networking Assistant http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite | Computer Science Major