From owner-freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Fri Jul 10 16:44:11 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1D79B997D19 for ; Fri, 10 Jul 2015 16:44:11 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from Don.whY@gmx.com) Received: from mout.gmx.net (mout.gmx.net [212.227.17.21]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "mout.gmx.net", Issuer "TeleSec ServerPass DE-1" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 8EAD51D92 for ; Fri, 10 Jul 2015 16:44:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from Don.whY@gmx.com) Received: from [192.168.1.115] ([67.212.197.98]) by mail.gmx.com (mrgmx103) with ESMTPSA (Nemesis) id 0MYOCL-1ZZCrw2LD7-00VCuI; Fri, 10 Jul 2015 18:43:53 +0200 Message-ID: <559FF63A.9020607@gmx.com> Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2015 09:43:38 -0700 From: Don whY User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.1.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Cary CC: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: format/newfs larger external consumer drives References: <86fv4wdfpw.fsf@bsdstb.Belkin> In-Reply-To: <86fv4wdfpw.fsf@bsdstb.Belkin> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Provags-ID: V03:K0:dAEoOeQ6GaYhVSw0sHtmtDDvlo3BUMF0s7fwrv77Hh2XNQf5E4g 5PsNkgbv3ALe4/1fqswjHWDCV+XeuQNjRegk4tKDR1jZlxFw1YwUrFspZj+ZAmG7PaUjcwO Qe5oxyri2aRCjvYsDZjlv6oE8TJKSF9MHplJnpdZjtF0AblEy6c/BTCZR+OhtQSRDEY6Jdv mCvcAfBhgvdN33zd4tJqg== X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1;V01:K0:C4O/oKe8/R0=:SX10HI4il1m5STZAfpJNNx 7eeB30/9LFWI+UBHc1zJ0IjJSguM1nbLv2byJohYT2kMgGFapmQv8fH9vUv/QtP/kZO3JY0kL xLxatx3kBf0ktCqxib/IfK92OsA/YykFJMBIADHunVPJlrfQfSNNC2kTJKQfy1wPWXW3x1pbW XhKZF/JXfrWIPwRonCQw8BXhwB5BsSZW+ZGCTp4WRg0OnQyoHm2g3lNMiz4/ox8I5VZ75p/jG Cvz3z7uVJIaYVmB87nzNfgB/tfAXpFc2lEgIqwpGJWvCTSF8xkrgJMT7xulj4rN/HgGamZJ7F V+wz9elHUC7N2s1OS09Jsj1mvmTZOWq2LlDgvbMSjt4z43mPhLw1bi9bzDv8rQ+8LMpBzUkwL 1R/8+bmVsSdP4Z1WrWts1haxD70g6bRqtH3X6NKE7rYh5HpMxgnDYZP9QJ7JCjK9B8faR206x QyD2d6cd5+V+d+snKOsAn2QpMwHuKo4aI/nNTp/KaFQAEZ8DuJv1duyDn0w/sExe034Mx3liK xTbIzv8kvpSHg12540Jx1OfldUWaek2OXZiCCM87Cq45P9UTKDnas2yRN8YUeEeaD9znj/gtM LNgVJFXj/zT+71L0H7csvrmJXBC5qL1GY4Hg82J0GGLKaFjsF8o8q1DtW0b4nPbXaieGbJEkp vZIYl9o2Bz8J8/WWR7knCRu5rTxWrMnTDWIBEpUeSLtJxfRs1uB55JAqJbvrX5n99utM= X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2015 16:44:11 -0000 On 7/9/2015 5:22 PM, Cary wrote: > Don whY writes: > >> When building a filesystem (FFS) on these 1/2/3/4TB external USB >> drives, any suggestions? E.g., changing block sizes? Cut into >> multiple slices to make fsck's job easier (as well as *recovery*)? >> >> Any other pointers? >> >> [Note that I'm not looking for "performance" -- otherwise I wouldn't >> be going the external route -- but, rather, "bulk, semi-offline >> storage"] > > Before worrying about fsck(8) I recommend you think about using > geom(8) to put a journal on the device if your > plan is to create a FFS filesystem. The journal consumes some > drive space but for any filesystem over 20-30 GB > it won't limit your storage capacity very much. > > I do not have any external drives formatted with FFS, and I would be > interested to know myself if it is at all possible to use gjournal(8) > with an external usb drive. Someone else on the list must know > the answer to that question. > > You should read the man page for gjournal(8) and note the part about > disabling soft-updates and using the async mount(8) option. > > There is a short intro to the topic in the handbook. > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/geom-gjournal.html Thanks, I'll check into it. I'm interested in developing some guidelines for designing "appliances" where the hardware complement isn't typically as rich as a desktop environment (e.g., would *not* include a disk interface but *could* exploit an external disk, etc.). Of course, anything external means the user could insert/remove it at will -- which complicates how the system will deal with the resource.