From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 11 13:41:12 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 5948C1065677 for ; Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:41:12 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from steve@ibctech.ca) Received: from ibctech.ca (v6.ibctech.ca [IPv6:2607:f118::b6]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 05D7D8FC0C for ; Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:41:11 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from steve@ibctech.ca) Received: (qmail 86410 invoked by uid 89); 11 Jul 2008 13:43:59 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?IPv6:2607:f118::5?) (steve@ibctech.ca@2607:f118::5) by 2607:f118::b6 with ESMTPA; 11 Jul 2008 13:43:59 -0000 Message-ID: <487762FC.2090502@ibctech.ca> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:41:16 -0400 From: Steve Bertrand User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (Windows/20080421) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Disk configuration recommendations 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: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:41:12 -0000 Hi everyone, We've just built a new network storage box that will replace an existing unit. The device is purely for storing a hot backup of server images. The motherboard has four SATA ports, which I have connected to four 500GB SATA drives. I had full intentions on using either GEOM or ZFS (I'm just reading up on the latter now) to span the drives together (I don't care about redundancy on this unit). I did not realize until yesterday that the motherboard my colleague went with has onboard RAID. What I'm looking for are opinions on a solution to make this box as resilient as possible for the long term (eg: if the motherboard dies, it would be nice to drop the disks into another box). Do you have any recommendations on how I should proceed? Hardware RAID, ZFS or GEOM? Some info that may help guide recommendations: - 4GB of memory - dual core 2.2Ghz - I have no problem having /boot on a USB key - preferably /backup to be ~1.6TB - like to have a small piece of the disk encrypted (directory or partition) - would be nice to be able to easily (ie: dynamically) add storage capacity without wiping existing data - three GigE NICs, so would like to pursue the possibility of perhaps using disk space of other nodes (or at least mounting it remotely) - would consider a RAID 5 setup if a recommendation meets other (non-listed) design objectives Thanks all! Steve