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 1NrcuC-0001op-RF for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:58:21 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 1FD16E092F; Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:57:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtpout.karoo.kcom.com (smtpout.karoo.kcom.com [212.50.160.34]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C9305E092F for ; Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:57:51 +0000 (UTC) X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.49,650,1262563200"; d="scan'208";a="174947937" Received: from 213-152-39-90.dsl.eclipse.net.uk (HELO compaq.stroller.uk.eu.org) ([213.152.39.90]) by smtpout.karoo.kcom.com with ESMTP; 16 Mar 2010 19:57:50 +0000 Received: from funf.stroller.uk.eu.org (funf.stroller.uk.eu.org [192.168.1.71]) by compaq.stroller.uk.eu.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A60CF13C20 for ; Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:57:47 +0000 (GMT) Message-Id: <25EC8AD5-9178-4556-AB64-6069AAB40845@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> From: Stroller To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org In-Reply-To: <4B9FB29D.7010902@shic.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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 (Apple Message framework v936) Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Strategy for using SAN/NAS for storage with Gentoo... Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:57:49 +0000 References: <4B9E343A.4040908@shic.co.uk> <87d3z53b2u.fsf@newsguy.com> <854dca5c1003150849l16b375ddl89ad2e20a8f6a135@mail.gmail.com> <4B9E5FA4.1040501@shic.co.uk> <7D7A990E-4680-472D-8408-FFABFE82EDBA@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> <4B9E87FA.3090600@shic.co.uk> <4B9EB4B6.9040106@alyf.net> <4B9FB29D.7010902@shic.co.uk> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.936) X-Archives-Salt: 8f438847-96ad-4c5f-ba58-c4ef42df75ac X-Archives-Hash: 0ba43d84d1716d572ffbaf238b4262fa On 16 Mar 2010, at 16:32, Steve wrote: > ... >> Given the point above I would also stick with software RAID. > ... >> If reliability is your primary concern, I would go for a simple RAID1 >> setup; > Absolutely. Software raid is cheaper and implies less hardware to > fail. Similarly, RAID1 minimises the total number of disks required > to > survive a failure. It's the only way for me to go. How does your system boot if your RAID1 system volume fails? The one you have grub on? I think you mentioned a flash drive, which I've seen mentioned before. This seems sound, but just to point out that's another, different, single point of failure. >> If you do not need data sharing (i.e. if your volumes are only >> mounted >> by one client at a time), the simplest solution is to completely >> avoid >> having a FS on the storage server side -- just export the raw block >> device via iSCSI, and do everything on the client. > ... > Snap-shots, of course, are only really valuable for non-archive > data... > so, in future, I could add a ZFS volume using the same iSCSI strategy. I have wondered if it might be possible to create a large file (`dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/large/file` constrain at a size of 20gig or 100gig or whatever) and treat it as a loopback device for stuff like this. It's not true snapshotting (in the ZFS / BTFS sense), but you can unmount it and make a copy quite quickly. Stroller.