Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2003 16:23:03 +1030 From: Malcolm Kay <Malcolm.Kay@internode.on.net> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: vinum based system Message-ID: <200303151623.03287.Malcolm.Kay@internode.on.net>
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I am planning to put up a FreeBSD system, probably 4.8-RELEASE
when it appears, to manage backups from a number of Unix and unix-like
systems on a LAN.=20
Backups will be written nightly over the LAN to a local disk system and=20
transfered regularly to tape via a scsi tape-drive.
I am under pressure to make this system fairly reliable with respect
to hardware failure - particularly disk drives. The thought is to use a c=
ouple=20
of fairly large drives, say 120 or 160Gb running as a mirrored pair using
vinum. Having no experience with vinum or software RAID systems a number=20
of questions come to mind:
1) All the examples appear to use scsi drives; but I assume EIDE are also=
=20
usable? IDE seems to be pretty good these days and much cheaper than scsi=
=2E=20
2)To what extent can the system be fully mirrored? Without RAID hardware =
it
seems to me that a conventional disk partition outside the mirrored volum=
e is=20
probably necessary for mounting / ; is this true?
3)If the regular partition is necessary can this be taken as a modest sli=
ce=20
from one of the disks whose major part is devoted to the mirror volume,
and perhaps the corresponding slice on the other used for swap?
4)If the converse is true that the entire system can reside inside the=20
mirrored volume then do I need a temporary additional disk to build the=20
system? In any case it seems that an outside region or separate physical
disk would be better for swap.
Are there any RAID/vinum gurus out there that are willing to point me in =
the=20
right direction?
Malcolm Kay
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