Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 18:33:40 -0700 From: Roy Bettle <rbettle@criterion-group.com> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Vinum/RAID questions. Message-ID: <379917F4.FEFC64C9@criterion-group.com> References: <3798AA84.87CAABC6@criterion-group.com> <19990724094430.G84734@freebie.lemis.com>
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This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------D3B0E175038EAC7DC4878946 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greg; Dude! You really know your stuff! Thanks so much for your help re: RAID, Vinum, etc. Unless FreeBSD needs/uses disk I/O in a vastly different manner than the other NOSes we're more familiar with, we'll be using hardware to manage our RAID array. BTW, the PM3334UW/3 is a SmartRAID IV controller, not SmartRAID V so I presume (?) there's no issue with FreeBSD ... ? As to the +/- 2GB box, Vinum sounds like it is probably more trouble than it's worth for this little space. Just looking for things to try as I learn FreeBSD better. Thanks again for all your help. RAB P.S. Disk failure for DPT? ;-) Worse than that ... note the *.asp on their pages ... they're hosted on NT. Greg Lehey wrote: > On Friday, 23 July 1999 at 10:46:45 -0700, Roy Bettle wrote: > > Good morning all! Two quick vinum/RAID questions: > > > > Question #1) Is it possible to create a boot/install floppy that loads > > vinum? I have 2, 1.2 GB EIDE drives and would like to have them seen as > > one for the install if this is possible. > > No, that's not possible yet, but it will be Real Soon Now. > > > We are intending to us the DPT PM3334UW/3 - > > http://www.dpt.com/products/pm3334uw.html - in a FreeBSD server we > > going to start building next week. The DPT controller typically - > > what we have done with Linux, NT and Novell installations - creates > > a RAID stack (0, 0/1, 1, 5, etc.) that is managed by it's BIOS and > > them serves up the stack to the OS as a single, contiguous drive > > (ie- RAID0 with 4, 4GB drives; the OS only sees 1, 16GB drive). DPT > > says that this works the same way for BSD; I have no personal > > knowledge yet on this point. > > > > Question #2) Presuming that DPT will actually perform this way with > > FreeBSD, am I better off letting the controller handle the RAID > > stack (my hunch is, "Yes.", for performance reasons) in FreeBSD too, > > or should I use "vinum". I have no personal "vinum" experience as > > yet so needed to ask. > > If you're running a hardware RAID array, you don't need Vinum. If > you're running Vinum, you don't need a hardware RAID array. > > I've been trying to get the information from the DPT web site, but > it's off the net (disk failure? :-). Note that FreeBSD currently > doesn't support the SmartRAID 5. If that's what you're getting, > you'll have to find a different operating system for it. > > > BTW, the controller will/would be managing 5, 18.2GB UW SCSI drives in a > > hot-swap RAID5 stack with 64MB ECC EDO RAM. > > > > I am going to read through the man pages here in a moment; just wanted > > to see if someone had some experience doing this as the man pages aren't > > always the most current data source. > > In the case of Vinum, they are. > > Greg > -- > When replying to this message, please copy the original recipients. > For more information, see http://www.lemis.com/questions.html > See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers > finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message --------------D3B0E175038EAC7DC4878946 Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="rbettle.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Roy Bettle Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="rbettle.vcf" begin:vcard n:Bettle;Roy tel;work:(949) 452-1203 x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://www.criterion-group.com org:Criterion Group, Inc. version:2.1 email;internet:rbettle@criterion-group.com title:President note:Businesses that depend on computers, depend on us. adr;quoted-printable:;;26895 Aliso Creek Road=0D=0ASuite B404;Aliso Viejo;CA;92656;USA fn:Bettle, Roy end:vcard --------------D3B0E175038EAC7DC4878946-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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