From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 7 12:07:10 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5218716A4DD; Fri, 7 Jul 2006 12:07:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) Received: from ns1.jnielsen.net (ns1.jnielsen.net [69.55.238.237]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DBB9D43D46; Fri, 7 Jul 2006 12:07:09 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) Received: from localhost (jn@ns1 [69.55.238.237]) (authenticated bits=0) by ns1.jnielsen.net (8.12.9p2/8.12.9) with ESMTP id k67C73dd095357; Fri, 7 Jul 2006 05:07:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) From: John Nielsen To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 08:06:34 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.3 References: <200607070429.k674TkjX027354@banyan.cs.ait.ac.th> <200607070804.13892.lists@jnielsen.net> In-Reply-To: <200607070804.13892.lists@jnielsen.net> X-Face: #X5#Y*q>F:]zT!DegL3z5Xo'^MN[$8k\[4^3rN~wm=s=Uw(sW}R?3b^*f1Wu*.<=?utf-8?q?of=5F4NrS=0A=09P*M/9CpxDo!D6?=)IY1w<9B1jB; tBQf[RU-R<,I)e"$q7N7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-6" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200607070806.35144.lists@jnielsen.net> X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV version 0.88.3, clamav-milter version 0.88.3 on ns1.jnielsen.net X-Virus-Status: Clean Cc: Olivier Nicole , questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Creating vinum RAID 1 on place 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, 07 Jul 2006 12:07:10 -0000 On Friday 07 July 2006 08:04, John Nielsen wrote: > On Friday 07 July 2006 00:29, Olivier Nicole wrote: > > Is there a trick on the way to build a vinum RAID 1 without backup-in > > the data first? > > > > I have the two disk that will get mirrored. One of the disk if > > formated as UFS 4.2 and already holds all the data. The second disk is > > blank. > > > > NormallyI should start with 2 blank disks, label them as vinum, create > > the vinum plex, then push the data on that RAID. Is there a way to do > > it without blanking both disk first (a RAID 0 on a single disk, copy > > the data on the RAID 0), label the other disk as vinum and create a > > RAID1? > > This is quite possible. The 100% safe way would be to configure the blank > disk as the sole member of a (degraded) mirror set, use dump / restore to > transfer the data from the existing filesystem to the "mirror", then wipe > the old filesystem and add the original disk to the mirror. > > The faster but only 90% safe way would be to "gmirror label" the partition > containing the existing filesystem and then adding the second disk as a > member. This is not safe if the last sector of the existing provider (where > gmirror stores its metadata) is (or could be in the future) used by the > filesystem. Frequently the geometry works out such that there are spare > sectors at the end of a partition that are not used by newfs, but if you're > not sure then don't go this route. See the archives of this and other lists > for details about this situation. Sorry, I completely missed the "vinum" in your message the first time through. My comments above apply to GEOM mirroring (gmirror) and not to vinum. I would recommend gmirror over vinum for RAID 1, though, as it's much simpler to get going and at least as robust. JN