From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Aug 17 05:09:53 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BD4BF106566B for ; Fri, 17 Aug 2012 05:09:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from amvandemore@gmail.com) Received: from mail-ob0-f182.google.com (mail-ob0-f182.google.com [209.85.214.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 730D38FC12 for ; Fri, 17 Aug 2012 05:09:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: by obbun3 with SMTP id un3so6343085obb.13 for ; Thu, 16 Aug 2012 22:09:52 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; bh=KYfYRanDlDJPG5vdfipTmMbWpcv9T2D/AnE0zkMrfps=; b=ArkAa+qVWfO9pxcvpzI8KpXe1SFMFOm/FHlH2JoN+LTEjiJTuUhGPDupNb4mDF0nCh qLL7s951urAzQBKe9WGUirhYk16cQ4/JpQ3zaQ2LAB8KMwNtnIa+8GlQwhG01OMdkPvO QGNc/oNI9LcMt8i5fxjSpjPu8+ddeojS2D4ICocUPmM7N+e0c90N+ynbCZ6PaozhfeKy IYLEdt4XPoF8Uq4Ny/cx8I4Sqpn7wt79bcBMYi45hnqhQfQN7r8bfR6GW/FgWMG+LvtG +wB8IYA9NFZBJw+uGy+Mn5ReUwmP1XGkgrJcimv+dFzBS768oUG8/hiz0hSg/e9KEoKC Gz0Q== MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.182.43.40 with SMTP id t8mr2884516obl.93.1345180192203; Thu, 16 Aug 2012 22:09:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.76.83.130 with HTTP; Thu, 16 Aug 2012 22:09:52 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <47AFB706686083E99B3A3F3E@localhost> References: <47AFB706686083E99B3A3F3E@localhost> Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2012 00:09:52 -0500 Message-ID: From: Adam Vande More To: Paul Schmehl Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: FreeBSD Questions List Subject: Re: Best file system for a busy webserver 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, 17 Aug 2012 05:09:53 -0000 On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 10:45 AM, Paul Schmehl wrote: > Does anyone have any opinions on which file system is best for a busy > webserver (7 million hits/month)? Is anyone one system noticeably better > than any other? > > Just curious. I'm getting ready to setup a new box running FreeBSD 9, and > since I'm starting from scratch, I'm questioning all my previous > assumptions. > Sounds like you have ample hardware, so I would probably consider ZFS. You get a lot of other options with it which simply aren't available or harder to manage on a UFS system. Things like data integrity, ZIL/ARC, live low-cost snapshots, diff'ing the snapshot, transparent compression, etc all come with ZFS. Great tools for certain scenarios. Properly setup, ZFS RAID functionality will own any hardware raid solution ever presented because ZFS doesn't rely on a battery for consistency, nor do they provide most other features stated including integrity oriented ones. ZFS is intended to work with raw disk/JBOD. Good controllers are still important, they simply don't have the knowledge to use them at peak efficiency. I don't see much benefit to SSD's for this use case. All the common files should be in the fs cache which is at least an order of magnitude faster than flash based memory, and finding enterprise SSD's(preferably SLC) which obey FLUSH commands appropriately and have a capicitor appropriate to production use is something more of a crapshoot than traditional SATA/SAS drives. All that being said, UFS is fine too. I use it most often for light VM installs and where resources are scarce. However the 2 single biggest ZFS feature I like are the data integrity and transparent compression are wonderful which aren't available in UFS. ZFS snapshots are much more functional as well and go well w/ zfs send/receive. -- Adam Vande More