From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 29 19:07:24 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E5A391065674 for ; Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:07:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from poppanecktie@gmail.com) Received: from rn-out-0910.google.com (rn-out-0910.google.com [64.233.170.191]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9D6268FC16 for ; Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:07:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from poppanecktie@gmail.com) Received: by rn-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id j71so98675rne.12 for ; Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:07:22 -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=qpYGmMBaOonrm97VGNcMIf7ATD2KHUJEFt3zZWi+qmg=; b=opR4GpLeSP5epEJMIHqqr8eLobvLRwauzDPslP9ZLyC5yl+79qPwL42S7PFPEkc/nI JUN0rJnOFh/7dd7HW7pQJnVjUOfoUjfPCMLKlENytIAreC790xLCPatcBLc0waby8VOR FsTSHPcSuvmc07vu/oiwMRA3g0kPwyNMnN7fM= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type; b=mJQYwyqS3IpWRTaVHyHBYYffXuQlBIQj5I8U8f9jbN3Fk16AyA8GGDaG2PLMVNt5k8 qdOYmUnvNXCXWFtjFYQxbywUGUXjLfs2aSbICXA9Ysfs7Ucyvwv0J2N2KMXH2xLTci6L ON44KLZGb1D5CzInujuW+3W3K725saTYIdrw8= Received: by 10.142.174.8 with SMTP id w8mr4171755wfe.33.1225304326202; Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:18:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.143.10.6 with HTTP; Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:18:45 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <9f3798c00810291118i1c80cb8cw8d4995eabe6a4f8f@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:18:45 -0700 From: "Rich Fairbanks" To: 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 Cc: Subject: Filesystem, RAID Question 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 19:07:24 -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