From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri May 5 14:11:18 2006 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 170AC16A403 for ; Fri, 5 May 2006 14:11:18 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from david.robillard@gmail.com) Received: from nz-out-0102.google.com (nz-out-0102.google.com [64.233.162.202]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2171E43D48 for ; Fri, 5 May 2006 14:11:17 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from david.robillard@gmail.com) Received: by nz-out-0102.google.com with SMTP id l1so661480nzf for ; Fri, 05 May 2006 07:11:16 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition; b=tH65Dk/x6PcvvIYLWN7nHPzRTiyEmlzEZcJEvv9/mS2ltq5unVloolMT6FDd6hKmO9Nf8VBhkE+wX883iNl2MJFYrCYgmEGKi1F52MlyCmynO21bmVhCVSmWA5VUqzeN+tDR/Xgp3F9d1Eh9qM2v5prVJPyCeJ7oUSGvIBdO9ao= Received: by 10.65.218.14 with SMTP id v14mr211348qbq; Fri, 05 May 2006 07:11:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.64.178.19 with HTTP; Fri, 5 May 2006 07:11:16 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <226ae0c60605050711q421c8535i3072c49c616928a8@mail.gmail.com> Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 10:11:16 -0400 From: "David Robillard" To: "FreeBSD Questions Mailing List" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Cc: Robert Fitzpatrick Subject: Re: Software RAID guidance 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, 05 May 2006 14:11:18 -0000 Robert Fitzpatrick wrote: >I have an old NT4 PIII here that has a pair Adaptec Array1000 Family >controllers with 2 pairs of identical drives on one of them (2 IBM 9GB >and 2 Seagate 35GB). From what I googled, *nix does not support the >controller, so I have removed the RAID arrays and loaded FreeBSD 6.0 >onto the two IBM drives. Now, I wanted to mirror the other two for data >and looking for guidance as to whether it is first of all suited for >software RAID and if so, CCD or vinum. I am contemplating vinum because >the handbook mentions CCD is when cost is the important factor and for >me, is reliability. What would someone suggest? If vinum, one thing I >don't quite understand is do I create the partitions to be used in the >device? There doesn't seem to be a man for gvinum and the link to it in >the handbook section 19.6.1 is broken. Hi Robert, I use gmirror(8) to setup RAID 1 volumes. I've used it successfully with IDE, SCSI and SATA drives. It is very simple to setup and administration is easy. If you only need RAID 1, then you should try it out. Should you need RAID 5 and/or a fully fledged volume manager, then vinum is the way. I also wrote a document on gmirror(8) setup. If you're interested, I can share it with you. David FYI: man page URLs gmirror(8) http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=3Dgmirror&apropos=3D0&sektion=3D0&= manpath=3DFreeBSD+6.0-RELEASE+and+Ports&format=3Dhtml vinum(4) http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=3Dvinum&apropos=3D0&sektion=3D0&ma= npath=3DFreeBSD+6.0-RELEASE+and+Ports&format=3Dhtml -- David Robillard UNIX systems administrator, CISSP Montreal: +1 514 966 0122