From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Dec 18 05:59:42 1996 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id FAA07436 for questions-outgoing; Wed, 18 Dec 1996 05:59:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from horton.iaces.com ([204.147.87.98]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id FAA07431 for ; Wed, 18 Dec 1996 05:59:39 -0800 (PST) Received: (from proot@localhost) by horton.iaces.com (8.8.4/8.7.3) id HAA19438; Wed, 18 Dec 1996 07:59:32 -0600 (CST) From: "Paul T. Root" Message-Id: <199612181359.HAA19438@horton.iaces.com> Subject: Re: Are 2 drives better than 1? To: steve@edmweb.com (Steve Reid) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 07:59:32 -0600 (CST) Cc: kory@avatar.com, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: from Steve Reid at "Dec 17, 96 06:49:22 pm" X-Organization: !nterprise Networking Services - ACES X-Phone: (612) 663-1979 X-Fax: (612) 663-8030 X-Page: (800) SKY-PAGE PIN: 537-7270 X-Address: 200 S. 5th St., Suite 1100 X-Address: Minneapolis, MN 55402 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In a previous message, Steve Reid said: > > I'm trying to put a high performance freebsd system together and I have a > > question. Would it be faster to have 2 scsi drives, one for root, swap, > > and /usr and the other for /home, or 1 drive and put everything one it? > > All other things being equal, multiple drives are certainly faster than a > single drive. > > With two drives, you can make two accesses (almost?) simultaneously, > whereas with one drive you have to wait for the read head to finish > accessing the first file before it can move to read the second file. The > more drives the better, provided you can split up your directory structure > appropriately. > > You could even use ccd so that the filesystem is automatically and > transparently split evenly between the disks, but that kinda puts all your > eggs in one basket. > If you go with multiple disks, you want to split the FSs by use. If you access both /var and /home a lot, then split them. Also, you may wish to consider putting swap on both disks. You'll get some benifit from that. On the other hand, you say you have (or are getting) the 2940UW. The handbook says that there isn't much benifit to wide, unless you're going to use it for heavy nfs or server use. Paul. -- Herbivores ate well cause their food didn't never run. -- Jonathan Fishman