From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jul 27 07:28:05 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 963DC106566C for ; Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:28:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kraduk@googlemail.com) Received: from mail-fx0-f54.google.com (mail-fx0-f54.google.com [209.85.161.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 279D48FC16 for ; Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:28:04 +0000 (UTC) Received: by fxm13 with SMTP id 13so447842fxm.13 for ; Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:28:04 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:received:in-reply-to :references:date:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type; bh=J/dM4+nkhVoJsbAaFOL0eN/YZMOhDmDXxPNt9nfoZtc=; b=ToVhp0Nx4as5XBJDSYxSdsre49+cy2oBHnswmTvrVd/Sr0nE6MAhm942v7KsKWaSz6 dlyacCR9G4jkL1JaDmUJI+XbOq3q7lCa1TlzSsE5CXtHhKxBLe9GtuXmT3QwIU3X3M55 6oVz4AfK5MnG08RMWbE8jfny+CdfVDyy37NQE= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; b=Vz57x9no/PVRjTKdHBlmkI1hClierzd9Fjf22z1VITlN2c6IvUpYJDU+lcWzv4O0fo CVKERBLRWUi8j0PJ04dQXruABExPPtU7WAO63VIg6OWgnJ78C4JT3TqPCwvzGOHoMSOE meQrDUEGDMM2DdVRgtgvoh9e7QCLWpyGlX4xI= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.239.155.18 with SMTP id g18mr478851hbc.184.1280215683145; Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:28:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.239.160.201 with HTTP; Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:28:03 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <980022A0-7623-40A5-BCDE-4909A721933D@mac.com> References: <4C4DDA28.4070205@identry.com> <980022A0-7623-40A5-BCDE-4909A721933D@mac.com> Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:28:03 +0100 Message-ID: From: krad To: Chuck Swiger Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: John Almberg , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 1 file system, 2 drives? 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: Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:28:05 -0000 On 26 July 2010 20:05, Chuck Swiger wrote: > Hi, John-- > > On Jul 26, 2010, at 11:55 AM, John Almberg wrote: > > I know this is probably impossible, but FreeBSD can do so many miraculous > things, that I can't help asking... > > > > Is it possible to use the second drive to 'expand' the /videos file > system? So it would miraculously look like a single 400G drive? > > The canonical way of doing this is to either create a RAID-0 concat or > stripe volume. Using RAID-0 striping is preferred due to performance, but > you'd need to backup, reformat using a RAID-0 stripe, and then restore your > data onto the new volume. In theory, setting up a concat is less intrusive, > but if the data is already mounted and in use, you'll probably still need to > unmount it first. > > If you have hardware controller with RAID capabilities, using native RAID > is better, otherwise look towards gvinum or maybe ccd; see also: > > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/raid.html > > Regards, > -- > -Chuck > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to " > freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > I dont agree that hardware raid is necessarily better. It really depends on what the system is doing. If for example it is purely acting as a filer I would always use software raid. The main reason for this is that you benefit from the faster CPU, and more intelligent raid software (zfs). You are also not tied to a particular hardware platform which makes future upgrades easier. If however the system is doing lots of other things and you dont want the overhead of a software raid solution, it makes sense to offload it to a hardware solution