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Date:      Wed, 07 Nov 2007 09:01:27 -0500
From:      =?UTF-8?B?6Z+T5a625qiZIEJpbGwgSGFja2Vy?= <askbill@conducive.net>
To:        freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: geom_raid5 inclusion in HEAD?
Message-ID:  <4731C537.9030101@conducive.net>
In-Reply-To: <fgse36$lbe$1@ger.gmane.org>
References:  <fgs516$mj8$1@ger.gmane.org>	<487375.1457.qm@web30309.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<9bbcef730711070450x308129b4rb18577c317eee197@mail.gmail.com>	<4731B8DA.8010201@conducive.net> <fgse36$lbe$1@ger.gmane.org>

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Ivan Voras wrote:
> 韓家標 Bill Hacker wrote:
>> Ivan Voras wrote:
>>> On 07/11/2007, Arne Wörner <arne_woerner@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>>>> Maybe gjournal could help, because graid5 honors the BIO_FLUSH, but
>>>> that is
>>>> untested...
>>> Yes, AFAIK this would work.
>>>
>> A RAID5 is one of the harder ones to do both fast and well in
>> software-only.
>>
>> The better hardware ($$$) controllers have fast hardware XOR engines as
>> well as CPU-as-state-machines and battery-backed cache, and THEY have to
>> work hard.
> 
> I agree. But regarding the immediate topic of gjournal on graid5:
> gjournal has hooks in the UFS code to do full sync before journal switch
> (commit), which it then propagates to the devices and issues BIO_FLUSH,
> so it can offer both speed and reliability in this particular case.
> 
>> Given decent hardware & any UPS that costs less than the hardware
>> controller, these are 'choices' - not really show-stoppers.
> 
> In theory this is correct, in practice still many people don't know the
> choices they are implicitly making.
> 

I'm all for having it / improving it.

GEOM in general and GMIRROR in particular have been *magic* for us as they are 
much more safely managed over ssh in the absence of an IPMI, IP KVM, or serial 
link than even a good hardware RAID controller.

But I'd not like to see yet-another iteration of 'a little knowledge..' folk 
follow geom_raid5 as flavor-of-the-month, then expect coders to yet-again defy 
gravity when the inevitable bites 'em in the anatomy, either.

First we walk. THEN we run....

Bill




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