Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:55:10 +0200 From: Pawel Jakub Dawidek <pjd@FreeBSD.org> To: Mark Powell <M.S.Powell@salford.ac.uk> Cc: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ZfS & GEOM with many odd drive sizes Message-ID: <20070719135510.GE1194@garage.freebsd.pl> In-Reply-To: <20070719102302.R1534@rust.salford.ac.uk> References: <20070719102302.R1534@rust.salford.ac.uk>
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[-- Attachment #1 --] On Thu, Jul 19, 2007 at 11:19:08AM +0100, Mark Powell wrote: > Hi, > I'd like to experiment with ZFS. > To that end I'd like to get a running array from a rather ad hoc > collection of old drives. > > 3x250GB > 3x200GB > 1x400GB > > > I planned to arrange them in 3 pairs of of 250+200. Therefore I'd end up > with an effective 4 drives: > > 3x450GB > 1x400GB > > I'd gmirror to make a small 2GB root and swap from the extra 50GB on the 3 > pairs. Then gconcat to join the remaining 448GB from each pair into a > volume. Apparently root is possible on ZFS with a small ufs to boot from: > > http://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFSOnRoot > > Then make a zfs raidz from the 3x448+1x400. Effectively giving a zpool > of 1200GB real storage. 3x48GB will not be accessible now as the last > volume will only be the 400GB on the last drive. > I want to be able to increase the size of this volume later, by > replacing drives when they fail, or it becomes economical to do so. > I know removing a volume from a zpool and replacing it with a larger one > is possible. The zpool will self-heal the data onto the new volume. > Eventually when the final volume is replaced by a larger one the extra > space becomes available for use. That's correct right? > What I want to know is, does the new volume have to be the same actual > device name or can it be substituted with another? > i.e. can I remove, for example, one of the 448GB gconcats e.g. gc1 and > replace that with a new 750GB drive e.g. ad6? > Eventually so that once all volumes are replaced the zpool could be, for > example, 4x750GB or 2.25TB of usable storage. > Many thanks for any advice on these matters which are new to me. All you described above should work. -- Pawel Jakub Dawidek http://www.wheel.pl pjd@FreeBSD.org http://www.FreeBSD.org FreeBSD committer Am I Evil? Yes, I Am! [-- Attachment #2 --] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFGn20+ForvXbEpPzQRAgvDAKDLvAs/U/m5JJvpG2JE+cYWdtyyKgCgwz6/ nc0Q4BVYJAEa0G5c7XzkQ/M= =0qNP -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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