From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jul 26 06:48:46 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9FA2E1065672 for ; Tue, 26 Jul 2011 06:48:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from D.Forsyth@ru.ac.za) Received: from a.mail.ru.ac.za (a.mail.ru.ac.za [IPv6:2001:4200:1010::25:1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AE4938FC0C for ; Tue, 26 Jul 2011 06:48:45 +0000 (UTC) Received: from iwr.ru.ac.za ([146.231.64.249]:61206) by a.mail.ru.ac.za with esmtp (Exim 4.75 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1QlbRa-000Oib-KM for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Tue, 26 Jul 2011 08:48:42 +0200 Received: from iwdf-5.iwr.ru.ac.za ([146.231.64.28]) by iwr.ru.ac.za with esmtp (Exim 4.76 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1QlbRa-000LDM-J8 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Tue, 26 Jul 2011 08:48:42 +0200 From: "DA Forsyth" Organization: IWR To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2011 08:48:41 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <4E2E6349.31621.5CCE7B53@d.forsyth.ru.ac.za> Priority: normal In-reply-to: <20110725120012.2415C10656F2@hub.freebsd.org> References: <20110725120012.2415C10656F2@hub.freebsd.org> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (4.52) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-description: Mail message body X-Virus-Scanned: a.mail.ru.ac.za (146.231.129.33) Subject: graid3 or graid5? with or without gjournal? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: d.forsyth@ru.ac.za List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2011 06:48:46 -0000 Hi all I am busy putting together a new server. I want to avoid using the motherboards raid 'hardware' (intel matrix raid) and rather do it all in software so if anything goes wrong with the motherboard, the drives can work in some other box. I have 4x 1TB drives available for the main data array. graid3 can only use 3 graid5 can use all 4, but is it production ready? any ideas? The advantage of using graid3 at this point is that the extra 1TB drive I have can then go into the backup server which needs more space anyway. Having suffered data loss on the previous raid5 (intel matrix) array when UFS went bananas due to one drive failing, I am looking at solutions/preventatives. Will gjournal be useful? Thanks -- DA Fo rsyth Network Supervisor Principal Technical Officer -- Institute for Water Research http://www.ru.ac.za/institutes/iwr/