Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Thu, 02 May 2019 09:27:36 +1000
From:      Michelle Sullivan <michelle@sorbs.net>
To:        Chris <chrcoluk@gmail.com>
Cc:        freebsd-stable <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: ZFS...
Message-ID:  <6D7D690B-31DA-4A86-BB34-64A977B91D4F@sorbs.net>
In-Reply-To: <CAOhm=5oRTkr6L037fzh4DKpqgMY5XJVp60t934en3%2BrGCnbFJw@mail.gmail.com>
References:  <30506b3d-64fb-b327-94ae-d9da522f3a48@sorbs.net> <CAOhm=5oRTkr6L037fzh4DKpqgMY5XJVp60t934en3%2BrGCnbFJw@mail.gmail.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help


Michelle Sullivan
http://www.mhix.org/
Sent from my iPad

> On 02 May 2019, at 02:16, Chris <chrcoluk@gmail.com> wrote:
>=20
> Your story is so unusual I am wondering if its not fiction, I mean all
> sorts of power cuts where it just so happens the UPS fails every time,

The only =E2=80=9Cfiction=E2=80=9D is the date.. was the 10th not the 19th M=
arch... https://www.southcoastregister.com.au/story/5945663/homes-left-witho=
ut-power-after-electrical-pole-destroyed-in-sanctuary-point-accident/

UPSes do glitch out sometimes, but rarely..  they do have problems when 11kv=
 comes down a 240v line though...

> then you decide to ship a server halfway round the world, and on top
> of that you get a way above average rate of hard drive failures.  But
> aside from all this you managed to recover multiple times.
>=20

Incorrect..  I shipped the server around the world 18 months ago.. (Oct 2017=
)..  before that the power problems...  well Malta is legendary for them... =
=20

This was the last to hit me before I moved back home to Australia after bein=
g there for 8 years... =20

https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20170826/local/hundreds-of-househ=
olds-without-power-after-fire-in-distribution-centre.656490

> ZFS is never claimed to be a get out of jail free card, but it did
> survive in your case multiple times, I suggest tho if you value
> redundancy, do not use RAIDZ but use Mirror instead.  I dont know why
> people keep persisting with raid 5/6 now days with drives as large as
> they are.

Could that be because at the time of building it, the largest drives were 4T=
...  had the 6T drives been available to me I would have mirrored 6T drives i=
nstead of zRAID2 ing 16x3T drives.



>=20
> I have used ZFS since the days of FreeBSD 8.x and its resilience
> compared to the likes of ext is astounding and especially compared to
> UFS.

I=E2=80=99m not disputing its resilience to errors in the file data, it is r=
ather good, but when it comes to the metadata that=E2=80=99s when I have alw=
ays had problems.. it=E2=80=99s ok until it isn=E2=80=99t, then it=E2=80=99s=
 lucky if you can get it back... and until now I=E2=80=99ve had that luck.


>=20
> Before marking it down think how would UFS or ext have managed the
> scenarios you presented in your blog.

Well I have 2 servers with zfs, the rest are UFS or HPFS...  the only other I=
ssue I had was a (mirrored drive) with HPFS...  it got corrupted where it (t=
he FSCK like tools) couldn=E2=80=99t fix it...  but the drive was still acce=
ssible and the backups were on the zfs drives... (timemachines in zvols over=
 iscsi)... I didn=E2=80=99t need to go to timemachine (though I did check th=
e data for consistency after =E2=80=9Crestore=E2=80=9D) .. I got new drives,=
 replaced then, mirrored them, then copied over everything except the OS by m=
ounting one of the drives in an external caddy...  solved the underlying =E2=
=80=9Cunfixable=E2=80=9D error in the HPFS structures...

>=20
> Also think about where you hosting your data with all your power
> failures and the UPS equipment you utilise as well.

Well I have insurance quotes for new UPSes that I=E2=80=99m waiting on repla=
cement so that=E2=80=99s sorta mute...  I could post the images of them here=
 if you like or don=E2=80=99t believe me?

Seriously it is unusual I get it, but all my ZFS problems have been due to f=
ailures whilst resilvering ... it=E2=80=99s always (over 8 years of running t=
hese servers) resilvering tHat does it...  it=E2=80=99ll be happily progress=
ing and another drive fails, power goes out, kernel panic, etc...  then the p=
roblems start, and if it does it twice you better start praying.  This is my=
 experience.

Michelle

>=20
>> On Mon, 29 Apr 2019 at 16:26, Michelle Sullivan <michelle@sorbs.net> wrot=
e:
>>=20
>> I know I'm not going to be popular for this, but I'll just drop it here
>> anyhow.
>>=20
>> http://www.michellesullivan.org/blog/1726
>>=20
>> Perhaps one should reconsider either:
>>=20
>> 1. Looking at tools that may be able to recover corrupt ZFS metadata, or
>> 2. Defaulting to non ZFS filesystems on install.
>>=20
>> --
>> Michelle Sullivan
>> http://www.mhix.org/
>>=20
>> _______________________________________________
>> freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list
>> https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
>> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"=

> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list
> https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?6D7D690B-31DA-4A86-BB34-64A977B91D4F>