Hi, guy!
On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 12:59:13AM +0200, you wrote the following:
> > We're running out of diskspace. On our 70 GB array we have about 500
> > free MB left, and we don't even have all the Mandrake 7.2 ISOs yet.
> > I've tried to coordinate a hardware donation from Aduva but there
> > doesn't seem to be enough enthusiasm from our side. The mirroring
> > scripts will soon start failing due to lack of diskspace and there's
> > very little I can do.
>
> i suggest that you temporarily disable/remove one of the mirrors, until
> more disk space is available. better then having half mirrors.
I'll check the download logs and remove the one that's used the least.
My guess is that it will be the GNU mirror.
> > One of the admins of the server has to take responsibility and help me
> > and the guys from Aduva to perform the upgrade. We need to giveUry
> > Segal the model of the drive that we need and their quantity, and
> > they'll buy those drives for us. Someone who knows what's going on
> > needs to decide what disks we need and where we're going to put them
> > (physically in the machine; perhaps we need an external housing now to
> > host all the disks).
>
> i think chen and omer could tell us about this - i've seen the box from
> the outside, and i've no idea how much more space it has. note that there
> is also the possibility of simply ading more disks to the existing array -
> does linux support that? i could peroform the physical hard disks
> instalation - but i'd better leave the software part (if its done in this
> RAID manner) to the folks who did it first (chen and omer).
Right now we have a simple software RAID 0 array. I'd like to have a
hardware RAID 5 array, because we've already had problems with the
disks and I'm not willing to trust them.
In the worst case, we should have a software RAID 5 array.
> > As far as I understand, Aduva is also willing to buy us a RAID
> > controller, so that we can install a RAID 5 system and avoid the kind
> > of problems that we had before. We need to decide on the model we
> > want, too, probably mostly depending on its Linux support.
>
> i guess they could also recommend something that they are currently using?
> i don't know zilch about hardware RAID controller support under linux.
I'm not sure they're using any themselves.. Anyone from Aduva here by
any chance?
> > We also need to think out a way to backup the current archive, if we
> > don't want to download it all again. The best approach would be to
> > bring a DDS4 tape drive and back it up to a couple of casettes. Is
> > there anyone who can loan such a drive and two casettes?
>
> are you refering to a DDS3 tape? what is DDS4?
>
> i could theoretically bring in a DDS3 tape drive and 3 tapes to perform
> the backup (assuming 3 would be sufficient for a full backup, provided
> that their full compressed capacity would suffice - 24MB in compressed
> mode per tape). the problem is the need to babysit the machine while it
> performs its backup, in order to replace tapes when necessary.
DDS4 is 20/40. The truth is that two tapes will not be enough, since
virtually all the files in the archive are already compressed, so each
tape will only take about its raw capacity, 20 GB. Thus we'll need 4
DDS4 tapes. That's probably too much work to swap them all one by
one. If you're really close to the server, you could theoretically
come four evenings in a row and thus back it up in four days. It will
still be significantly faster then re-downloading the archive.
That, of course, depends on someone loaning us a DDS4 tape drive and
the tapes.
> however, there might be a different method: if the new
> RAID will be logically seperater from the current RAID, then there will be
> no need for backup of any sort - we'll just move some of the data to the
> new RAID, and perform some balancing between the two RAIDs.
It's a possibility, but frankly I'd rather re-populate the archive.
Having two separate volumes will create eternal headaches for the
mirror admin to balance the mirrors each time -- they're very volatile
in size. Especially the distributions.
Besides, the disks that we have now are not reliable, and it would
help a lot to have them in a RAID 5 array.
> > Then someone (who's closer to the server in Haifa than me in
> > Jerusalem) needs to physically install the disks and the RAID 5 array,
> > and backup and restore the archive should we decide to do it.
>
> since i'm closest to the machine itself, i can do the physical
> installations involved.
That's already a lot! Thanks.
--
Alex Shnitman | http://www.debian.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] +-----------------------
http://alexsh.hectic.net UIN 188956 PGP key on web page
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I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.
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