Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:39:44 -0400 From: stan <stanb@panix.com> To: John Nielsen <lists@jnielsen.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Best way to create a large data space Message-ID: <20060714173944.GB23323@teddy.fas.com> In-Reply-To: <200607141111.48098.lists@jnielsen.net> References: <20060713123434.GB30789@teddy.fas.com> <20060714002401.GC25387@teddy.fas.com> <200607141037.15183.lists@jnielsen.net> <200607141111.48098.lists@jnielsen.net>
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On Fri, Jul 14, 2006 at 11:11:47AM -0400, John Nielsen wrote: > On Friday 14 July 2006 10:37, John Nielsen wrote: > > On Thursday 13 July 2006 20:24, stan wrote: > > > On Thu, Jul 13, 2006 at 04:20:56PM -0400, John Nielsen wrote: > > > > On Thursday 13 July 2006 08:34, stan wrote: > > > > > i have a Sun Ultra 40 with 4 500F SATA drives. I plan on using this > > > > > machine primarily for a large data storage requirement. > > > > > > > > > > What I want is one large /data partition. Given all the choices for > > > > > doing this in FreeBSD (software) what's the "best" choice here? The > > > > > partio will be shared via SAMBA if that affects the thhinking here. > > > > > > > > "Best" really depends on what your needs and goals are. Here's a quick > > > > overview of what the choices ARE, based mostly on memory. Corrections > > > > and additions welcome. I'll try to make some notes about pros and cons > > > > as well. > > > > > > Thanks for the nice summary. > > > > > > The data will be backed up nightly, so I'll probably use gstirpe to get > > > the maximum capicty. RAID5 would not work very well with 3 x 500G > > > (asuuming that I can't use the 500G that I put the system on). > > > > If that's really what you want to do then here are a couple more tips. You > > can't boot from a gstripe volume, and when (not if) one of your drives goes > > bad you'll be happier if you only lose your data and not your entire OS. So > > plan to partition the drives and use gmirror for the base OS (since you can > > boot from a gmirror volume). Make a relatively small partition (10GB?) at > > the beginning of each drive. Make a gmirror volume using two or three of > > them and install the OS to that volume. Use the remaining one or two small > > partitions for swap or utility partitions. Then make your giant gstripe > > volume out of the large partitions on all four drives. > > Or better yet, make a gvinum RAID5 volume with the four large partitions. > K, I think I'm convinced. That would give me 1.5TB for my 2TB of physical disk. Got a pointer to docs on how to install the base OS on a RAID5 config? -- U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote - Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror - New York Times 9/3/1967
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