From owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 1 20:16:53 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D810FDBB for ; Fri, 1 Mar 2013 20:16:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gperez@entel.upc.edu) Received: from violet.upc.es (violet.upc.es [147.83.2.51]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 694901598 for ; Fri, 1 Mar 2013 20:16:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: from ackerman2.upc.es (ackerman2.upc.es [147.83.2.244]) by violet.upc.es (8.14.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id r21KGjGb004662 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=FAIL); Fri, 1 Mar 2013 21:16:45 +0100 Received: from [192.168.1.110] (247.Red-81-39-132.dynamicIP.rima-tde.net [81.39.132.247]) (authenticated bits=0) by ackerman2.upc.es (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id r21KGhh4008484 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Fri, 1 Mar 2013 21:16:45 +0100 Message-ID: <51310CAA.1020701@entel.upc.edu> Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 21:16:42 +0100 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Gustau_P=E9rez_i_Querol?= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130220 Thunderbird/17.0.3 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Graham Allan Subject: Re: benefit of GEOM labels for ZFS, was Hard drive device names... serial numbers References: <512FE773.3060903@physics.umn.edu> In-Reply-To: <512FE773.3060903@physics.umn.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.70 on 147.83.2.244 X-Mail-Scanned: Criba 2.0 + Clamd X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-3.0 (violet.upc.es [147.83.2.51]); Fri, 01 Mar 2013 21:16:46 +0100 (CET) Cc: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Filesystems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2013 20:16:53 -0000 Al 01/03/2013 00:25, En/na Graham Allan ha escrit: > Sorry to come in late on this thread but I've been struggling with > thinking about the same issue, from a different perspective. > > Several months ago we created our first "large" ZFS storage system, > using 42 drives plus a few SSDs in one of the oft-used Supermicro > 45-drive chassis. It has been working really nicely but has led to > some puzzling over the best way to do some things when we build more. > > We made our pool using geom drive labels. Ever since, I've been > wondering if this really gives any advantage - at least for this type > of system. If you need to replace a drive, you don't really know which > enclosure slot any given da device is, and so our answer has been to > dig around using sg3_utils commands wrapped in a bit of perl, to try > and correlate the da device to the slot via the drive serial number. > > At this point, having a geom label just seems like an extra bit of > indirection to increase my confusion :-) Although setting the geom > label to the drive serial number might be a serious improvement... > > We're about to add a couple more of these shelves to the system, > giving a total of 135 drives (although each shelf would be a separate > pool), and given that they will be standard consumer grade drives, > some frequency of replacement is a given. > > Does anyone have any good tips on how to manage a large number of > drives in a zfs pool like this? > I don't have such a large array, I have about 8 or 10 drives at most but I'd go with Freddie's convention. I'd also go with GPT labels instead of geom labels because the former are universal. I'd also ensure that you can easily identify driver with leds. Either by issuing commands to the disk controller (I use mfiutil to visually identify them) or by using ses, but you probably have though. Greets, Gustau -- Salut i força, Gustau --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prou top-posting : http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-posting Stop top-posting : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style O O O Gustau Pérez i Querol O O O Unitat de Gestió dels departaments O O O Matemàtica Aplicada IV i Enginyeria Telemàtica Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya Edifici C3 - Despatx S101-B UPC Campus Nord UPC C/ Jordi Girona, 1-3 08034 - Barcelona