From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 25 21:19:39 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 C21EC16A469 for ; Thu, 25 Jan 2007 21:19:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from milo@cyberlifelabs.com) Received: from smtp.cyberlifelabs.com (197-39.84.64.master-link.com [64.84.39.197]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 95D7F13C45D for ; Thu, 25 Jan 2007 21:19:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from milo@cyberlifelabs.com) Received: from [192.168.1.101] ([71.146.45.11]) (AUTH: LOGIN milo@cyberlifelabs.com) by mail.geo.cyberlifelabs.com with esmtp; Thu, 25 Jan 2007 13:19:39 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) In-Reply-To: <0C1E63BE-0E2B-4ABC-952C-3EDC95CF8D8A@mac.com> References: <25E0702D-C3A3-4B6B-BC56-D1BC5C1347F5@cyberlifelabs.com> <0C1E63BE-0E2B-4ABC-952C-3EDC95CF8D8A@mac.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: <8A3D6CC2-5BB8-4A3F-9D72-C37383186C34@cyberlifelabs.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Milo Hyson Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 13:19:38 -0800 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.752.2) Subject: Re: RAID Performance Questions 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, 25 Jan 2007 21:19:39 -0000 On Jan 25, 2007, at 12:15, Chuck Swiger wrote: > Still, you also ought to consider that a 3-disk RAID-5 > configuration is very much not ideal from either an efficiency or > performance standpoint-- you want more like 5 or 6 drives being > used, in which case your performance numbers ought to increase > some. This is also somewhat true of the 4-disk RAID-10 config; > using 6 or all 8 drives would likely improve performance compared > with striping against only two disks. Unfortunately, I'm a bit limited in terms of equipment and application requirements. For starters, the app specs currently call for two arrays: one for general file-serving and databases, and the other for backups. Due to limited hardware I'm to run both on the same controller. Far from ideal, I know, but it's what I have. Second, I need to keep at least one drive as a hot-spare. Thus, I have seven drives that I somehow need to partition into two groups and maximize performance without sacrificing reliability. Lastly, the RAID controller does not permit more than two drives in a RAID-1 set. Any suggestions? -- Milo Hyson CyberLife Labs