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Date:      Wed, 24 Nov 2004 19:33:55 +0100
From:      =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Eirik_=D8verby?= <ltning@anduin.net>
To:        Pawel Jakub Dawidek <pjd@FreeBSD.org>
Cc:        stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: graid3 - requirements or manpage wrong?
Message-ID:  <6579E984-3E47-11D9-9576-000D9335BCEC@anduin.net>
In-Reply-To: <20041124171115.GP7232@darkness.comp.waw.pl>
References:  <41A45A3F.5010008@anduin.net> <20041124171115.GP7232@darkness.comp.waw.pl>

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On 24. Nov 2004, at 18:11, Pawel Jakub Dawidek wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 24, 2004 at 10:54:07AM +0100, Eirik ?verby wrote:
> +> to the best of my ability I have been investigating the 'real'=A0
> +> requirements of a raid-3 array, and cannot see that the following=20=

> text=A0
> +> from graid3(8) cannot possibly be correct - and if it is, then the=A0=

> +> implementation must be wrong or incomplete (emphasis added):
> +>=A0
> +> label=A0 =A0 =A0 Create a RAID3 device.=A0 The last given component =
will=20
> contain
> +>=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 parity data, all the rest - regular =
data.=A0 ***Number=20
> of=A0
> +> compo-
> +>=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 nents has to be equal to 3, 5, 9, =
17, etc. (2^n +=20
> 1).***
> +>=A0
> +> I might be wrong, but I cannot see how a raid-3 array should=20
> require=A0
> +> (2^n + 1) drives - I am fairly certain I have seen raid-3 arrays=A0
> +> consisting of four drives, for example. This is also what I had=20
> hoped to=A0
> +> accomplish.
>
> This requirement is because we want sectorsize to be power of 2
> (UFS needs it).
> In RAID3 we want to send every I/O request to all components at once,
> that's why we need sector size to be N*512, where N is a power of 2=20
> value
> AND because graid3 uses one parity component we need N+1 providers.

OK I see, makes sense. So it's not really a raid3 issue, but an=20
implementation issue.
The only problem then is - gvinum being in a completely unusable state=20=

(for raid5 anyway), what are my alternatives? I have four 160gb IDE=20
drives, and I want capacity+redundancy. Performance is a non-issue,=20
really. What do I do - in software?

/Eirik

>
>
> --=A0
> Pawel Jakub Dawidek =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
http://www.FreeBSD.org
> pjd@FreeBSD.org =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
http://garage.freebsd.pl
> FreeBSD committer =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 Am I =
Evil? Yes, I Am!
On 24. Nov 2004, at 18:11, Pawel Jakub Dawidek wrote:

On Wed, Nov 24, 2004 at 10:54:07AM +0100, Eirik ?verby wrote:
+> to the best of my ability I have been investigating the 'real'=A0
+> requirements of a raid-3 array, and cannot see that the following=20
text=A0
+> from graid3(8) cannot possibly be correct - and if it is, then the=A0
+> implementation must be wrong or incomplete (emphasis added):
+>=A0
+> label=A0 =A0 =A0 Create a RAID3 device.=A0 The last given component =
will=20
contain
+>=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 parity data, all the rest - regular =
data.=A0 ***Number=20
of=A0
+> compo-
+>=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 nents has to be equal to 3, 5, 9, 17, =
etc. (2^n +=20
1).***
+>=A0
+> I might be wrong, but I cannot see how a raid-3 array should require=A0=

+> (2^n + 1) drives - I am fairly certain I have seen raid-3 arrays=A0
+> consisting of four drives, for example. This is also what I had=20
hoped to=A0
+> accomplish.

This requirement is because we want sectorsize to be power of 2
(UFS needs it).
In RAID3 we want to send every I/O request to all components at once,
that's why we need sector size to be N*512, where N is a power of 2=20
value
AND because graid3 uses one parity component we need N+1 providers.

OK I see, makes sense. So it's not really a raid3 issue, but an=20
implementation issue.
The only problem then is - gvinum being in a completely unusable state=20=

(for raid5 anyway), what are my alternatives? I have four 160gb IDE=20
drives, and I want capacity+redundancy. Performance is a non-issue,=20
really. What do I do - in software?

/Eirik



--=A0
Pawel Jakub Dawidek =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
http://www.FreeBSD.org
pjd@FreeBSD.org =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
http://garage.freebsd.pl
FreeBSD committer =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 Am I =
Evil? Yes, I Am!






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