From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 21 15:39:32 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B150A16A411 for ; Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:39:32 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from pgiessel@mac.com) Received: from maru.leela.ws (209-193-28-35-cdsl-rb1.jnu.acsalaska.net [209.193.28.35]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 658AC13C44C for ; Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:39:32 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from pgiessel@mac.com) Received: from [192.168.0.249] ([158.145.111.132]) (authenticated bits=0) by maru.leela.ws (8.13.8/8.13.6) with ESMTP id l2LFdPA2011548 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT); Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:39:27 GMT (envelope-from pgiessel@mac.com) Message-ID: <460151AE.1010705@mac.com> Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 07:39:26 -0800 From: "Peter A. Giessel" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.0.10) Gecko/20070221 Thunderbird/1.5.0.10 Mnenhy/0.7.4.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: John Nielsen References: <4600D8D9.3010401@charter.net> <200703211033.03337.lists@jnielsen.net> In-Reply-To: <200703211033.03337.lists@jnielsen.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Gabriel Rossetti , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Best software raid 5 software? 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, 21 Mar 2007 15:39:32 -0000 On 2007/03/21 6:33, John Nielsen seems to have typed: > On Wednesday 21 March 2007 03:03:53 am Gabriel Rossetti wrote: >> I am about to switch to software raid 5 for my personal server. I know >> hardware raid 5 is better, but being a student I'd rather not invest in >> a raid adapter now, plus my cpu is being used at about 0.0% 24/24 7/7, >> so it needs some exercise :-) >> >> I've heard of several software-based raid-5 projects, mainly of Vinum, >> has anybody tested it or any other ones? >> Which would you suggest? > > As far as I know, gvinum is the only software package in FreeBSD that can do > RAID 5. The initial learning curve is a bit steep, but it should work fine > once you get it configured. There is also a geom_raid5 class, which you can find out about by searching the freebsd-geom mailing list: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/search.cgi?words=graid5&max=250&source=freebsd-geom I don't think its quite ready for prime-time though. Vinum did not make the transition to Gvinum as cleanly as could be desired, so if you setup a gvinum array, I would recommend keeping good backups and testing it pretty harshly to make sure it will cleanly survive a drive failure. Gvinum has been getting significantly better with time, but as with anything before putting it into a production environment, test it throughly (and keep good backups, did I mention that keeping good backups is important? Because good backups are important...)