From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Aug 19 19:24:11 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-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 9A48B16A41F for ; Fri, 19 Aug 2005 19:24:11 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu) Received: from gromit.dlib.vt.edu (gromit.dlib.vt.edu [128.173.49.29]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 24A6B43D45 for ; Fri, 19 Aug 2005 19:24:11 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu) Received: from zappa.Chelsea-Ct.Org (pool-141-152-80-192.roa.east.verizon.net [141.152.80.192]) by gromit.dlib.vt.edu (8.13.3/8.13.3) with ESMTP id j7JJO7os029633 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:24:08 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu) Received: from zappa.Chelsea-Ct.Org (localhost.Chelsea-Ct.Org [127.0.0.1]) by zappa.Chelsea-Ct.Org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id j7JJO1w6027702 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:24:01 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu) Received: (from paul@localhost) by zappa.Chelsea-Ct.Org (8.13.4/8.13.4/Submit) id j7JJO1nZ027701; Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:24:01 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu) From: Paul Mather To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <20050819163914.86B2716A41F@hub.freebsd.org> References: <20050819163914.86B2716A41F@hub.freebsd.org> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:24:00 -0400 Message-Id: <1124479440.27454.15.camel@zappa.Chelsea-Ct.Org> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.2.3 FreeBSD GNOME Team Port Cc: Robin Smith Subject: Re: Vinum migration 4.x-5.4 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, 19 Aug 2005 19:24:11 -0000 On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 11:01:55 -0500, Robin Smith wrote: > There seems to be a consensus in the references I've found that vinum > is completely broken on 5.4 and that gvinum/geom_vinum is not ready > for production use. As it seems to me, this means that anyone using > 4.11 (say) and vinum will have to abandon vinum (i.e. quit doing > software > RAID) in order to upgrade to 5.4. That can be both laborious and slow > (e.g. if you have /usr on, say, a four-drive vinum volume in 4.11, > you're > going to have to replace those drives with something else in order to > go > to 5.4. Is that false, and is there a relatively simple way to get > geom_vinum in 5.4 to read a vinum configuration produced under 4.11 > and > start the vinum volume as it is? I am using geom_vinum on RELENG_5 without problems. However, I use only mirrored and concat plexes, and most of the problems I've heard people experiencing involve RAID 5 plexes. Geom_vinum uses the same on-disk metadata format as Vinum, so it will read a configuration produced under 4.x---in fact, this was one of its design goals. BTW, Vinum is not the only software RAID option under 5.x: you can use geom_concat (gconcat) or geom_stripe (gstripe) for RAID 0; geom_mirror (gmirror) for RAID 1; and geom_raid3 (graid3) for RAID 3. I successfully replaced my all-mirrored geom_vinum setup in-place on one system with a geom_mirror setup. Finally, if you are migrating from 4.x to 5.x, you might consider a binary installation with restore rather than a source upgrade. That way, you can newfs your filesystems as UFS2 and get support for, e.g., snapshots, background fsck, etc. Cheers, Paul. -- e-mail: paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu "Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid." --- Frank Vincent Zappa