From owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Nov 3 20:17:23 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 51192106566B for ; Wed, 3 Nov 2010 20:17:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@koitsu.dyndns.org) Received: from qmta09.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net (qmta09.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net [76.96.30.96]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 34C098FC0A for ; Wed, 3 Nov 2010 20:17:22 +0000 (UTC) Received: from omta11.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.30.36]) by qmta09.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id Sea11f0060mlR8UA9kHN2j; Wed, 03 Nov 2010 20:17:22 +0000 Received: from koitsu.dyndns.org ([98.248.41.155]) by omta11.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id SkHM1f00F3LrwQ28XkHMV7; Wed, 03 Nov 2010 20:17:22 +0000 Received: by icarus.home.lan (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 92D9C9B422; Wed, 3 Nov 2010 13:17:21 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2010 13:17:21 -0700 From: Jeremy Chadwick To: Ronald Klop Message-ID: <20101103201721.GA80732@icarus.home.lan> References: <4CD04AEC.8040607@aldan.algebra.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Cc: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Using an SSD "disk" for / X-BeenThere: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Filesystems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2010 20:17:23 -0000 On Wed, Nov 03, 2010 at 08:35:21PM +0100, Ronald Klop wrote: > On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:39:35 +0100, Tom Evans > wrote: > > >On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 1:34 PM, Pete French > > wrote: > >>I boot a server from a Compact Flash drive connected to a CF->SATA > >>adaptor. Its only 4GB, enough to boot, and then all my read/write > >>partititons come from several terrabytes of attached zpool. It > >>works excellently, and was very cheap to setup. Performance is > >>fine as you are almost never writing to the flash drive. The only > >>time I notice the slowdown is when doing an installworld or > >>installkernel. > >> > >>-pete. > >> > > > >When you set up your disks like this, where do you put your swap? > > > >For my home ZFS server - which has a tank with two raidz pools, each > >with 6 disks in - I partitioned the first 6 disks into 2 partitions, a > >6 GB chunk at the start, and the remaining data used for zfs. I then > >use 3 of the disks first partition in a gmirror UFS root partition, > >and the other 3 as swap. > > Why do you need swap if the server is doing file serving only? You > will have more fun if you add more RAM then when you add more swap. Well, in my case, I'm equally concerned about memory exhaustion (sometimes programs do spiral out of control!), in addition to the need for a dump device in the case of a kernel panic. Pete's situation and needs are different from mine, but those are the two focal points I have when it comes to swap and /var's size. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc@parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |