opinion on which software RAID to use
I have a stack of new boxes here with two SATA drives on which I plan to do software RAID. The box actually has a hardware RAID but it is somehow disabled since I didn't pay extra for it... I can access the BIOS and set up the RAID volume but it fails at boot. So they are configured as individual disks. The boxes are Dell PowerEdge 1425SC. Anyhow, I see at least three ways to set up a mirror of these drives and/or partitions: gvinum gmirror atacontrol Any opinions on which has both qualities: easy to configure/manage (ie, recover after failure) and performance? The handbook RAID page doesn't even mention gmirror. The atacontrol seems very simple to use, at least. Let me know what you think. Thanks! ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: opinion on which software RAID to use
Hi Vivek, Any opinions on which has both qualities: easy to configure/manage (ie, recover after failure) and performance? The handbook RAID page doesn't even mention gmirror. The atacontrol seems very simple to use, at least. I've had very good results with gmirror. It's very easy to set up, performance is good (didn't really benchmark it though) and recovering faulty drives is easy to do. Never had a problem with it ... -- Rink P.W. Springer- http://rink.nu Richter: Tribute? You steal men's souls, and make them your slaves! Dracula: Perhaps the same could be said of all religions. - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night pgplC57USWdEQ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: opinion on which software RAID to use
Rink Springer on 2006-03-02 20:30:03 +0100: Hi Vivek, Any opinions on which has both qualities: easy to configure/manage (ie, recover after failure) and performance? The handbook RAID page doesn't even mention gmirror. The atacontrol seems very simple to use, at least. I've had very good results with gmirror. It's very easy to set up, performance is good (didn't really benchmark it though) and recovering faulty drives is easy to do. Never had a problem with it ... I'll second gmirror. An excellent tutorial may be found at http://people.freebsd.org/~rse/mirror/. pgpUfOJnPOvvh.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: opinion on which software RAID to use
On Thu, 2006-03-02 at 14:11 -0500, Vivek Khera wrote: Anyhow, I see at least three ways to set up a mirror of these drives and/or partitions: gvinum gmirror atacontrol Any opinions on which has both qualities: easy to configure/manage (ie, recover after failure) and performance? The handbook RAID page doesn't even mention gmirror. The atacontrol seems very simple to use, at least. Let me know what you think. Thanks! For basic mirroring, I'd say go for gmirror. I've been using it successfully for a long time. I migrated to it from vinum/gvinum because it offered more flexible read load-balancing (you can choose between various policies) and easier recovery. It can even do N-way mirroring. I tried atacontrol in the past, but could never get it to reconstruct after a simulated failure. With gmirror, you have the option of automatic or manual reconstruction for failed/stale providers. You might want to consider gvinum if you think you might want to use RAID 5 or LVM-type aggregations in the future, but if you are just planning on mirroring I'd strongly suggest going with gmirror. Cheers, Paul. -- e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. --- Frank Vincent Zappa ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: opinion on which software RAID to use
Hi, all! On Thu, Mar 02, 2006 at 08:30:03PM +0100, Rink Springer wrote: I've had very good results with gmirror. It's very easy to set up, performance is good (didn't really benchmark it though) and recovering faulty drives is easy to do. Never had a problem with it ... Seconded. Go, read Ralf Engelschall's great instructions on how to setup a gmirror system drive: http://ezine.daemonnews.org/200502/diskmirror.html IMHO this should be put somewhere more prominent. It could easily replace this section in the handbook: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/geom-mirror.html HTH, Patrick -- punkt.de GmbH Internet - Dienstleistungen - Beratung Vorholzstr. 25Tel. 0721 9109 -0 Fax: -100 76137 Karlsruhe http://punkt.de ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: opinion on which software RAID to use
Vivek, Frankly, for smaller, desktop-sized boxen I prefer atacontrol. Once set up at installation time, it just works. I even managed to hotswap drives on certain ATA controllers, provided that the drives are on different channels. On the server end, I still prefer SCSI-based hardware RAID. YMMV. Helge -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Vivek Khera Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 8:12 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: opinion on which software RAID to use I have a stack of new boxes here with two SATA drives on which I plan to do software RAID. The box actually has a hardware RAID but it is somehow disabled since I didn't pay extra for it... I can access the BIOS and set up the RAID volume but it fails at boot. So they are configured as individual disks. The boxes are Dell PowerEdge 1425SC. Anyhow, I see at least three ways to set up a mirror of these drives and/or partitions: gvinum gmirror atacontrol Any opinions on which has both qualities: easy to configure/manage (ie, recover after failure) and performance? The handbook RAID page doesn't even mention gmirror. The atacontrol seems very simple to use, at least. Let me know what you think. Thanks! ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
