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Date:      Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:54:55 -0700
From:      Freddie Cash <fjwcash@gmail.com>
To:        hartzell@alerce.com
Cc:        FreeBSD-STABLE Mailing List <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Does this disk/filesystem layout look sane to you?
Message-ID:  <b269bc570906150854h2f36c2ecg25da60842383ea20@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <18998.27937.780804.279674@already.local>
References:  <cf9b1ee00906140916n64a6c0cbr69332811bfa2aa62@mail.gmail.com> <cf9b1ee00906140917j86b1e4ev4f8e0a1fb5f6b8@mail.gmail.com> <b269bc570906141916k7bcf47b2pe87a88dde2d0a7a4@mail.gmail.com> <18998.27937.780804.279674@already.local>

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On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 8:47 AM, George Hartzell <hartzell@alerce.com>wrote:

> Freddie Cash writes:
>  > On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 9:17 AM, Dan Naumov <dan.naumov@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>  >
>  > > I just wanted to have an extra pair (or a dozen) of eyes look this
>  > > configuration over before I commit to it (tested it in VMWare just in
>  > > case, it works, so I am considering doing this on real hardware soon).
>  > > I drew a nice diagram: http://www.pastebin.ca/1460089 Since it doesnt
>  > > show on the diagram, let me clarify that the geom mirror consumers as
>  > > well as the vdevz for ZFS RAIDZ are going to be partitions (raw disk
>  > > => full disk slice => swap partition | mirror provider partition | zfs
>  > > vdev partition | unused.
>  >
>  >
>  > I don't know for sure if it's the same on FreeBSD, but on Solaris, ZFS
> will
>  > disable the onboard disk cache if the vdevs are not whole disks.  IOW,
> if
>  > you use slices, partitions, or files, the onboard disk cache is
> disabled.
>  > This can lead to poor write performance.
>  >
>  > Unless you can use one of the ZFS-on-root facilities, I'd look into
> getting
>  > a couple of CompactFlash or USB sticks to use for the gmirror for / and
> /usr
>  > (put the rest on ZFS).  Then you can dedicate the entirety of all 5
> drives
>  > to ZFS.
>
> Even if you use do a bootable ZFS on root, you'll end up with a couple
> of gpt partitions (boot code, swap, then root) and therefor
> constructing your ZFS file system from a partition.
>
> Pawel said, back on April 6, 2007,
>
>   "We support cache flushing operations on any GEOM provider (disk,
>    partition, slice, anything disk-like), so bascially currently I
>    treat everything as a whole disk [...]"
>
> Does anyone know for sure if we disable caching for partitions?
>

Going back through some old threads, it seems that I was mistaken, and it's
only on Solaris that disk cache is disabled for vdevs created from
partitions.  3 cheers for GEOM.  :)

-- 
Freddie Cash
fjwcash@gmail.com



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