From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 29 19:01:47 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C473A1065673 for ; Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:01:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from poppanecktie@gmail.com) Received: from yw-out-2324.google.com (yw-out-2324.google.com [74.125.46.31]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7C74A8FC14 for ; Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:01:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from poppanecktie@gmail.com) Received: by yw-out-2324.google.com with SMTP id 9so50455ywe.13 for ; Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:01:46 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to :subject:mime-version:content-type; bh=LXUR2DSAVJIoVIwoCuvy0STT3zZvRZ/9vAZGctpl11M=; b=mCo4QPz3CMybC6Qyh9TiO9Ktftug+sW+YI6d8C5rORvhE2jxXaFbAi4EwVwbkgJhxD EqhxZd6bgz0YGATkRUGCDvBiFoBJXNLFvc778BX9ItT1rZsYoSFkZljx/NGj1KnbJQrL JuzCJF7do+t1Ge2Tx/XDL/ZooJPyuj/6fNI9w= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type; b=GKuXKepBnJEseaOn4lX6GyCIfSh4wRCNIm5Mx6Rn0Jq30YiTpB8yVD/6H+EMtkIx7O 3MlMrMfkvKv6FRRRbqsLP3wf2e8ndS+VdpMldIpgn67F8B5LIF5jUUdN7UmP4Ziv8ml2 Ig/LSNiLe7zxMvw6Vm+dzBqSh8dRauDyILewY= Received: by 10.142.171.9 with SMTP id t9mr4152678wfe.341.1225305114108; Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:31:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.143.10.6 with HTTP; Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:31:54 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <9f3798c00810291131i7f968cdbl7520bbd81139a172@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:31:54 -0700 From: "Rich Fairbanks" To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: Filesystem, RAID questions X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:01:47 -0000 Hi, I'm new to FreeBSD (and UNIX in general), and I have read through the handbook and various websites to gain some insight on this question, but haven't found a concrete solution yet, and I'm hoping you guys can help. I'm wanting to build a FreeBSD 7.0 based file server for a small/medium company that I work for and I've got the box up and running, samba is working fine, the only problem that I can see is that the array that I installed (3ware 9650SE) with 3 WD 1TB SATA drives in RAID 5 seems to be performing very slowly. This isn't just an issue of slow access over the network for the Windows users, but when I transfer a few GB from directory to directory on the array, or from the system disk to the array or vice versa. Now, this is how I set up the array. I installed the card, popped in the drives. The card bios found the drives and allowed me to setup in RAID 5. Then, FreeBSD booted and found the "disk" as da0. I want the entire array to be one big chunk of space. In other words, I don't need a bunch of slices or partitions (or DO I? I'm still very new to the whole slice vs. partition concept) I typed newfs /dev/da0 . A ton of numbers went across the screen, then I mounted /dev/da0 at /usr/home/storage. It works, but perhaps I missed a step that would have made things easier/perform better, etc. Besides creating the file system a different way, what would be an optimum stripe size for the array? I will using this for storing, basically, a TON of word documents and email messages, and a few large .pst files. So, the average file size will be in the 25-100K range, but a few 1-2GB files. Thanks for ANY and all help. If this question has been asked and answered a million times, please forgive me and just point me to the place where I can read up on this issue. Thanks, RF