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Date:      Thu, 13 May 2010 21:29:48 -0400
From:      Paul Mather <paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Quantum SuperLoader 3 under Bacula on FreeBSD 8
Message-ID:  <DAA8CE35-81D0-43D6-97BC-E8CB897F97A5@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>

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I am currently assembling a quote for an LTO-4 tape backup system.  So =
far, I am looking at using a 16-slot Quantum SuperLoader 3 with LTO-4HH =
drive as the tape unit.  Married to this will be a server to act as the =
backup server that will drive the tape unit using Bacula to manage =
backups.  The server will be a quad core X3440 system with 4 GB of RAM =
and four 1 TB SATA 7200 rpm hard drives in a case that has room for =
eight hot-swap drives.  I plan on using FreeBSD 8 on the system, using =
ZFS to raidz the drives together to provide spool space for Bacula.  I =
will be using an Areca ARC-1300-4X PCIe SAS card to interface with the =
tape drive.

My main question is this: is the Quantum SuperLoader 3 LTO-4 tape drive =
supported by Bacula 5 on FreeBSD?  In particular, is the autoloader =
supported?  The Bacula documentation indicates the SuperLoader works =
fully under Bacula, though not explicitly whether under FreeBSD.

The backup server will serve a network cluster of perhaps a dozen =
machines with over 6 TB of storage, most of which is on the cluster's =
NFS server.  Does anyone have good advice on sizing the =
spool/holding/disk pool for a Bacula server?  Is it imperative to have =
enough disk space to hold a full backup, or is it sufficient to have =
enough space to maintain streaming to tape?  (I don't have much =
experience of Bacula, having used it only to back up to disk.)  In other =
words, do I need more 1 TB drives in my backup server?

Finally, is 4 GB of RAM sufficient for good performance with ZFS?  Will =
ZFS on FreeBSD be able to maintain full streaming speeds to tape, given =
the various reports of I/O stalls under ZFS reported recently?

Thanks in advance for any advice or information.

Cheers,

Paul.=



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