From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 24 18:15:17 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 578A716A421 for ; Thu, 24 May 2007 18:15:17 +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 20CD913C45E for ; Thu, 24 May 2007 18:15:17 +0000 (UTC) (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 l4OIFGc5094481; Thu, 24 May 2007 14:15:16 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) From: John Nielsen To: tradigan@newrevolutions.net Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 14:15:00 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.6 References: <4042.208.40.168.12.1180025016.squirrel@www.newrevolutions.net> <200705241358.50929.lists@jnielsen.net> <29548.208.40.168.12.1180030121.squirrel@www.newrevolutions.net> In-Reply-To: <29548.208.40.168.12.1180030121.squirrel@www.newrevolutions.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-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200705241415.00339.lists@jnielsen.net> X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV version 0.88.4, clamav-milter version 0.88.4 on ns1.jnielsen.net X-Virus-Status: Clean Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: gvinum and RAID 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: Thu, 24 May 2007 18:15:17 -0000 On Thursday 24 May 2007 02:08:41 pm tradigan@newrevolutions.net wrote: > > On Thursday 24 May 2007 12:43:36 pm tradigan@newrevolutions.net wrote: > >> Is it possible to use gvinum to create a striped array that contains the > >> root partition? I want to be able to combine all 4 of the hard disks > >> into > >> one logical striped array and install the boot partition on it. I have > >> found documentation on how to mirror the root drive, but none on using a > >> striped array for the root drive. > >> > >> Is this possible? > > > > Not without hardware support, no. > > > > I would create a small (1-2 GB) root partition one two or more of the > > drives > > and mirror it with gmirror (or not.. you must not care about fault > > tolerance > > if you're setting up a giant stripe). You could maybe use the same 1-2GB > > on > > the other drives for swap or tmp space (optionally mirrored as well). > > Then use the rest of the space on all the drives for your stripe array. > > I'd recommend gstripe over gvinum for ease-of-use, but it's up to you. > > > Is it possible to use gmirror for a small partition on two disks and then > use gstripe on the remaining disk space of those drives to create a larger > stripe? > > I didn't think that was possible. I could be wrong however :). > > If that will work, that would be my best option right there. Yes, that's exactly what I'm recommending. On each drive: fdisk -BI bsdlabel -wB bsdlabel -e (set up partitions here, use a for root and d for stripe) Then: gmirror label somename firstdisks1a seconddisks1a ... gstripe lable someothername firstdisks1d seconddisks1d ... etc. There are obviously a few blanks in the above but the manpages for each command and online documentation will help you fill them in. JN