From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jul 14 15:11:56 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B725B16A5B5 for ; Fri, 14 Jul 2006 15:11:56 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) Received: from ns1.jnielsen.net (ns1.jnielsen.net [69.55.238.237]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D56BA43D46 for ; Fri, 14 Jul 2006 15:11:55 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) Received: from localhost (jn@ns1 [69.55.238.237]) (authenticated bits=0) by ns1.jnielsen.net (8.12.9p2/8.12.9) with ESMTP id k6EFBsHR027243; Fri, 14 Jul 2006 08:11:55 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) From: John Nielsen To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 11:11:47 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.3 References: <20060713123434.GB30789@teddy.fas.com> <20060714002401.GC25387@teddy.fas.com> <200607141037.15183.lists@jnielsen.net> In-Reply-To: <200607141037.15183.lists@jnielsen.net> X-Face: #X5#Y*q>F:]zT!DegL3z5Xo'^MN[$8k\[4^3rN~wm=s=Uw(sW}R?3b^*f1Wu*.<=?utf-8?q?of=5F4NrS=0A=09P*M/9CpxDo!D6?=)IY1w<9B1jB; tBQf[RU-R<,I)e"$q7N7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200607141111.48098.lists@jnielsen.net> X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV version 0.88.3, clamav-milter version 0.88.3 on ns1.jnielsen.net X-Virus-Status: Clean Cc: stan Subject: Re: Best way to create a large data space X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 15:11:56 -0000 On Friday 14 July 2006 10:37, John Nielsen wrote: > On Thursday 13 July 2006 20:24, stan wrote: > > On Thu, Jul 13, 2006 at 04:20:56PM -0400, John Nielsen wrote: > > > On Thursday 13 July 2006 08:34, stan wrote: > > > > i have a Sun Ultra 40 with 4 500F SATA drives. I plan on using this > > > > machine primarily for a large data storage requirement. > > > > > > > > What I want is one large /data partition. Given all the choices for > > > > doing this in FreeBSD (software) what's the "best" choice here? The > > > > partio will be shared via SAMBA if that affects the thhinking here. > > > > > > "Best" really depends on what your needs and goals are. Here's a quick > > > overview of what the choices ARE, based mostly on memory. Corrections > > > and additions welcome. I'll try to make some notes about pros and cons > > > as well. > > > > Thanks for the nice summary. > > > > The data will be backed up nightly, so I'll probably use gstirpe to get > > the maximum capicty. RAID5 would not work very well with 3 x 500G > > (asuuming that I can't use the 500G that I put the system on). > > If that's really what you want to do then here are a couple more tips. You > can't boot from a gstripe volume, and when (not if) one of your drives goes > bad you'll be happier if you only lose your data and not your entire OS. So > plan to partition the drives and use gmirror for the base OS (since you can > boot from a gmirror volume). Make a relatively small partition (10GB?) at > the beginning of each drive. Make a gmirror volume using two or three of > them and install the OS to that volume. Use the remaining one or two small > partitions for swap or utility partitions. Then make your giant gstripe > volume out of the large partitions on all four drives. Or better yet, make a gvinum RAID5 volume with the four large partitions. I think the only tool in my original list that requires you to use the entire disk is ataraid(4). JN