From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Sep 10 20:13:05 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id UAA29193 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Thu, 10 Sep 1998 20:13:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id UAA29184 for ; Thu, 10 Sep 1998 20:13:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) with ESMTP id MAA00469; Fri, 11 Sep 1998 12:42:49 +0930 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) id MAA00627; Fri, 11 Sep 1998 12:42:48 +0930 (CST) Message-ID: <19980911124248.B611@freebie.lemis.com> Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 12:42:48 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: Mike Tancsa Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: vinum (was Re: Software RAID) References: <19980910095452.K583@freebie.lemis.com> <35f8906d.173923869@mail.sentex.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <35f8906d.173923869@mail.sentex.net>; from Mike Tancsa on Fri, Sep 11, 1998 at 02:59:35AM +0000 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Friday, 11 September 1998 at 2:59:35 +0000, Mike Tancsa wrote: > On Thu, 10 Sep 1998 09:54:52 +0930, in sentex.lists.freebsd.questions > you wrote: > >> On Thursday, 10 September 1998 at 0:16:29 +0000, Mike Tancsa wrote: >>> On Wed, 9 Sep 1998 18:27:49 +0930, in sentex.lists.freebsd.questions >>> you wrote: >>> >>>> On Tuesday, 8 September 1998 at 1:37:49 +0000, Mike Tancsa wrote: >>>>> On Mon, 07 Sep 1998 23:22:05 +0100, in sentex.lists.freebsd.questions >>>>> you wrote: >>>> Vinum will replace ccd. >>> >>> Would you say its ready for prime time in for example a new server >>> environment ? >> >> Good question. The current state is still "alpha", and there's a lot >> of stuff that still needs to be written, and other parts haven't been >> tested to my satisfaction: for example, I'm not convinced that >> recovering defective volumes on line works correctly in all cases. >> It compares favourably to ccd, though: in ccd, if a you have a drive >> failure, you have to modify your ccd config and reboot before you can >> access a mirrored pair again. Vinum handles this transparently. > > Alpha,beta, release code are all relative terms... Working both in the > NT world where "release code" is closer to a lot of 'beta' code in the > FreeBSD world, I am willing to try :-) :-) >> As far as reliability goes, a number of people have been using it >> heavily for a month now, and I haven't had any problem reports in that >> time (I *have* had reports of "works fine, no problems"). > > The main use would be on my news server spool... Although a real drag > if the spool barfs, its not really the end of the world since it > doesnt take long to fill up the drives again. I guess my main issue > is that if I do hit a bad sector, do I have to blow away the whole > spool ? That shouldn't be a problem. As I said, you may have one process die on you. >>> Also, on my news server I have a few drives that are of different >>> make and model. Last time I looked at ccd it was not reccomended to >>> try and stripe drives of different sizes and performance specs. >> >> Hmm. I can't think why not. > > I dont recall the reasons either, but that generally seemed to be the > consensus looking through old threads on ccd configuration and news > servers from last year. Possibly ideas from people who didn't know the details too well. >>> Also, how well does vinum cope with disk errors. I have one fuji >>> thats somewhat prone to them... >> > . > . >> this problem, but due to the kernel structure it's relatively complex. >> I'd expect it to be in by the end of the year, though. > > Hmmm.. I might wait a bit... Although not optimal, my multiple > partition schemes seem to do the job for now. When I add another 8 > gig drive to the new one I just added last week, I will perhaps try it > then as there should not be any errors on these 2 drives any time > soon. It'll still be better than any alternative. What happens is that one process runs into trouble and dies. At the same time, Vinum notes that there's a problem and marks the subdisk down. From then on, it doesn't try to use that subdisk again. Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message