From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Q3ar2-0003OZ-Rl for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sat, 26 Mar 2011 21:17:05 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id EDAB31C08A; Sat, 26 Mar 2011 21:13:31 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-ww0-f53.google.com (mail-ww0-f53.google.com [74.125.82.53]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9C9921C08A for ; Sat, 26 Mar 2011 21:13:31 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wwj40 with SMTP id 40so2374812wwj.10 for ; Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:13:30 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:from:to:subject:date:message-id:user-agent :in-reply-to:references:mime-version:content-transfer-encoding :content-type; bh=6KFzTiX42O/7+F0kp0DZM7aHOu4jdRxtPEAN1IXKXJQ=; b=W7wQco8FiR7geAsj5rUajCpmg2pupp8qMXHoQlojWOwjyvuFe1+aVLwI+xyDexr9sj /6hMXlUdkO0rcBxeNWBNqXyHkWRFaNuWLGui9qIFIALReS+5HMwEhQNLho+juxaGQKjW 69Yxwt+mlr9QGmN1n2iYYBR2WtRefbdZ+znio= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=from:to:subject:date:message-id:user-agent:in-reply-to:references :mime-version:content-transfer-encoding:content-type; b=dpzQuAYUtdjhqBfNHD0AdDg3zmkv3coc2QpuXi7FgUIH1ljOOHsuKKFJ5+8+buNN8R 49qj2bIyeZ8hpkCNz9S47e1kCZSf19K2KYun5gXJegJzNkBcheC6X47G6vfBMP1UeAHu Ash9doOxugTfgwz+0wol98dNOR6cpbIcXjIrM= Received: by 10.216.79.11 with SMTP id h11mr2061746wee.77.1301174010791; Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:13:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nazgul.localnet (196-215-2-50.dynamic.isadsl.co.za [196.215.2.50]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id m2sm863368wer.13.2011.03.26.14.13.29 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:13:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan McKinnon To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] LVM (Was: the best filesystem for server: XFS or JFS (or?)) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2011 23:13:26 +0200 Message-Id: <2257101.Z5VrWX5cNr@nazgul> User-Agent: KMail/4.6 beta4 (Linux/2.6.37-ck; KDE/4.6.1; x86_64; git-721ea32; 2011-03-10) In-Reply-To: <20110326190630.GA2406@gaurahari> References: <20110326190630.GA2406@gaurahari> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" X-Archives-Salt: X-Archives-Hash: b5465a8005920b76070d58bd9b4121ab On Saturday 26 March 2011 15:06:31 Elaine C. Sharpe wrote: > > Just because something works for most people, doesn't mean it will for > > everyone either. If you lose data, it doesn't matter. LVM just adds > > one more layer of something to go wrong. Me, I don't need the extra > > risk of having a system that doesn't boot and a loss of data. I'm sure > > there are a lot of people that see it the way I do too. They just > > don't > > need the extra risk. > > Using the least number of layers of abstraction you can get away with is > a perfectly valid criteria. What I was pointing out was that informal > polls of users with a sad story to tell is not a very effective way to > conduct research. People say all kinds of things that just aren't true. There's an elephant in this room. The number of actual layers is greater than just LVM plus FS. It's whatever the BIOS (or a reasonable substitute is doing), plus the drive firmware, kernel driver(s) - there's more than one of those - plus any RAID in use (hardware or software) and finally the file system. That's a lot of layers, a lot of code, a lot of opportunity for people to reveal the extent of their lack of knowledge. I've often heard it said that code like ZFS and brtfs eliminates several of these layers therefore it's technically a better option. That may be true, but let me just point out that whatever LVM+fs+other_stuff is doing as separate chunks of code also gets done by ZFS etc. You just don't see it, and just because it's abstracted away doesn't mean it's not there. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com