Disk configuration recommendations
Hi everyone, We've just built a new network storage box that will replace an existing unit. The device is purely for storing a hot backup of server images. The motherboard has four SATA ports, which I have connected to four 500GB SATA drives. I had full intentions on using either GEOM or ZFS (I'm just reading up on the latter now) to span the drives together (I don't care about redundancy on this unit). I did not realize until yesterday that the motherboard my colleague went with has onboard RAID. What I'm looking for are opinions on a solution to make this box as resilient as possible for the long term (eg: if the motherboard dies, it would be nice to drop the disks into another box). Do you have any recommendations on how I should proceed? Hardware RAID, ZFS or GEOM? Some info that may help guide recommendations: - 4GB of memory - dual core 2.2Ghz - I have no problem having /boot on a USB key - preferably /backup to be ~1.6TB - like to have a small piece of the disk encrypted (directory or partition) - would be nice to be able to easily (ie: dynamically) add storage capacity without wiping existing data - three GigE NICs, so would like to pursue the possibility of perhaps using disk space of other nodes (or at least mounting it remotely) - would consider a RAID 5 setup if a recommendation meets other (non-listed) design objectives Thanks all! Steve ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Disk configuration recommendations
Steve Bertrand wrote: Hi everyone, Do you have any recommendations on how I should proceed? Hardware RAID, ZFS or GEOM? To answer my own post... After a day of research, I decided upon ZFS. I configured a raidz pool using all four entire disks. I've put /boot on a USB thumb stick which I boot from, which allows me to mount / and the rest of the system directly from the ZFS pool. This prevents me from having to have a UFS slice on one of the disks, or install another hard drive just to run the system from. The idea was essentially copied from how I run my GELI systems. Boot from USB stick that contains the encryption key. Once the system is booted, I take the USB stick with me, which prevents access to the data if the machine is shut down. Steve ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
