From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Oct 2 20:30:20 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 D189616A412 for ; Mon, 2 Oct 2006 20:30:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from youshi10@u.washington.edu) Received: from mxout5.cac.washington.edu (mxout5.cac.washington.edu [140.142.32.135]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6390B43D62 for ; Mon, 2 Oct 2006 20:30:08 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from youshi10@u.washington.edu) Received: from smtp.washington.edu (smtp.washington.edu [140.142.32.139]) by mxout5.cac.washington.edu (8.13.7+UW06.06/8.13.7+UW06.03) with ESMTP id k92KU7HH012246 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK) for ; Mon, 2 Oct 2006 13:30:07 -0700 X-Auth-Received: from [128.208.4.20] (shiina.dyn.cs.washington.edu [128.208.4.20]) (authenticated authid=youshi10) by smtp.washington.edu (8.13.7+UW06.06/8.13.7+UW06.03) with ESMTP id k92KU7b7010463 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128 verify=NOT) for ; Mon, 2 Oct 2006 13:30:07 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) In-Reply-To: <45217439.5070704@donnex.net> References: <45217439.5070704@donnex.net> X-Gpgmail-State: !signed Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Garrett Cooper Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 13:30:13 -0700 To: FreeBSD Questions X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.752.2) X-PMX-Version: 5.2.0.266434, Antispam-Engine: 2.4.0.264935, Antispam-Data: 2006.10.2.130444 X-Uwash-Spam: Gauge=IIIIIII, Probability=7%, Report='__CT 0, __CTE 0, __CT_TEXT_PLAIN 0, __HAS_MSGID 0, __HAS_X_MAILER 0, __MIME_TEXT_ONLY 0, __MIME_VERSION 0, __SANE_MSGID 0' Subject: Re: Questions about adding new disk 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: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 20:30:21 -0000 On Oct 2, 2006, at 1:19 PM, Daniel Johansson wrote: > Hello, I've just bought two new Seagate SATA drives and a Promise > TX4 SATA300 controller. The disks and the controller is working > fine but I'm a little confused how I should setup them. > > First of all I'm running FreeBSD 6.1. The disks are two 320 GB > drives who I'm going to use for storage. Backups, movies, music etc. > > I've read the handbook about adding new disks and I've got them > setup but here are my questions. > > 1. Should I use soft updates or not on the new disks? The handbook > doesn't mention anything about using -U to newfs to setup soft > updates. The installer is using it on the system disks but is it a > bad idea to use it on storage disks or why isn't it mention in the > handbook? > > 2. Is it a bad idea to use tunefs -m 0 ? I don't need any space > reserved for root at the disks but the man page mentions that I'll > loose performance when using -m 0. Will it be so much that the > extra space isn't worth the performance loss? > > 3. Should I use tunefs -o space or time? I guess space is the way > to go but again how much of a performance loss is there? > > If you replay to this email could you please CC it to me as I'm not > subscribed to this list. > > Thank you for you help. My suggestions: 1. Turn softupdates on, or else if you lose power to the disk accidentally and some changes to the fs were in effect, you will possibly (20%~33% chance from my experience) lose data. 2. You want reserved space, or else fs'es fragment easily in the unix world, and you can still keep writing to an extent or another if you're root or privileged and you have reserved space IIRC. 3. It depends.. what do you want more and what is the role of the disk? If it's truly just storage and not used for a lot of swapping/ paging type applications, etc, think of using space over time. Otherwise, use time. -Garrett