Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 19:21:45 +1100 From: jonathan michaels <jlm@caamora.com.au> To: Andrew Pantyukhin <infofarmer@freebsd.org> Cc: stable@freebsd.org, fs@freebsd.org Subject: Re: gmirror disks vs partitions Message-ID: <20070120192145.57080@caamora.com.au> In-Reply-To: <cb5206420701170329u6f4b8259p85f423d39033ad8f@mail.gmail.com>; from Andrew Pantyukhin on Wed, Jan 17, 2007 at 02:29:33PM %2B0300 References: <20070117103935.GC4018@genius.tao.org.uk> <cb5206420701170329u6f4b8259p85f423d39033ad8f@mail.gmail.com>
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On Wed, Jan 17, 2007 at 02:29:33PM +0300, Andrew Pantyukhin wrote: > On 1/17/07, Josef Karthauser <joe@freebsd.org> wrote: > > A poll for opinions if I may? i suppose i'm asking the smae here as well ... > > I've got a few gmirrors running on various machines, all of which > > pair up two drives at the physical level (i.e. mirror /dev/ad0s1 > > with /dev/ad1s1). Of course there are other ways of doing it to, > > like mirroring at the partition level, ie pairing /dev/ad0s1a with > > /dev/ad1s1a, /dev/ad0s1e with /dev/ad0s1e, etc. > > > > Apart from potentially avoiding a whole disk from being copied > > during a resync after a crash, are there any other advantages to > > using partition level mirroring instead of drive level mirroring? > > I can imagine people using partition-level raid to > implement a popular configuration: > > You divide a couple of identical drives proportionally > in two partitions each, place a couple of the first > partitions into gmirror and a couple of the second > ones into gstripe. This way you get both reliable and > fast storage with just two drives. Some strings are > attached. my situation is somewhat different, in theat i am providing internet services for a (private) group to access tcp/ip based communications (we are all disabled and couldn't fine "reasonable" priced and competently serviced "ISP" services in our part of teh world, so we decided to do it for our selves) .. sorry thet is teh history and reason behind my participation in/with freebsd (over teh last 10 or so years). we have just recieved several older machines, PIII compaq proliant 5500 with hardware raid works quite nicely wonce it settled down and its batteries regained working voltage so to speak, it is running freebsd 6.10release, ms windows professional 2003 server, and linux debian (sarge v3.1) it is a multi-boot fixit box as well as bing teh basic "fileserver/nfs host" and kernel builder, with its 4 cpu architecture it works well. also came several 233 mhz 2 ide/2 rom drives (cd and dvd) and an 800 mhz PIII similarly equiped. all are intel hardware of some 8-10 years vintage, this is now the basic netowrk backbone, and upgrading from several intel 386dx33 and intel 486dx33/50 machines that have served this netowrk for over 20 years now. now that andrew has 'opened' my eyes so to speak to teh world of software raid and after some extensive reading i discovered RAIDFrame which looked to provide all tehat i am looking for, yes i played with vinum and got burned so badly i was only going to use hardware raid and the basis of my comments to andrew. i too have seen teh raid in freebsd has moved on, so i guess its time for me to move on as well, looks like software raid might just fit the bills that these multiple drive machines are begging .. all have several largis (for me) ide style harddisks, mainly 6-8 gb and i have relic 4 gb scsi harddisks that (as i read in RAIDFrame for freebsd) i'm hoping that i could build some sort of basic media platform for each of teh machines instead of constantly worrying about how to cut up teh operating system software load over teh available spindle count .. its not fun anymore working out where teh system was loading up teh spindles and draging down teh system as a whole .. i'm sure many of teh readers here have expericenced this before from time to time, atleast. i've seen lots of posts about RAIDFrame for freebsd upto about 2002 and perhaos 2003 .. is teh port stabalised and not in need of anymore work, or has it been canned and or droped ??? from what i have read the raidframe package would be an ideal solution, i like very much mr long's introduction on teh freebsd (people) page. this discussion on teh whole had been most enlightening and i hape it will bear much fruit for the geom project in teh long term .. i've been gollowing teh gstripe (here in -stable) i need to keep reminding myself that teh software is not bad, it is being developed and thats why all teh "bad/bug/things going wrong are being reported here in -stable, that what -stable is for/all about. sorry for my post, i'm not very good at comunicationing, its one of teh parts of mybrain that don't work too good, and that is why i'm (struggling) on teh invalid pension. umm i'd also like to take this opportunity to say thank you for al the support freebsd has given me over teh years, it has been a most wonderfull experience, the stability and reliability has been a shining light that i take with me whereever i go, int eh softeware world, and in general as its produced because people band togehter and care about what they do and that is what makes freebsd what it is .. not superieor code and all tehse other things, which i'm sure help, ok just a linny little bit (grin). much appreciations, thanks and gratittude. most kind regards jonathan and caamora dot com dot au -- ================================================================ powered by .. 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