Hi, I''ve read a few articles about the lack of ''simple'' raidz pool expansion capability in ZFS. I am interested in having a go at developing this functionality. Is anyone working on this at the moment? I''ll explain what I am proposing. As mentioned in many forums, the concept is really simple: allow a raidz pool to grow by adding one or more disks to an existing pool. My intended user group is the consumer market, as opposed to the enterprise, so I expect I''ll put some rather strict limitations on how/when this functionality will operate: to make the first implementation more achievable. The use case I will try and solve first is, what I see as, the simplest. I have a raidz pool configured with 1 file system on top; no snapshots. I want to add an additional disk (must be at least the same size as the rest of the disks in the pool). I don''t mind if there is some downtime. I want all my data to take advantage of the additional disk. What is the benefit to the consumer? The answer is simple: - more flexibility in growing storage i.e. can have an odd number of disks. - more disk space available for use e.g. 2 pools of 3 disks gives less available space than 1 pool of 6 disks. - consistent with many RAID-5 implementations - opens up the consumer market for raidz: growable small backup/SAN/Home Theatre appliances I''m no expert on any of this stuff, but I do have many years experience as a software engineer. Is there a mentoring program that Sun offers so I can get some assistance when necessary? My expectation is that this isn''t impossible to do but it isn''t simple to do either. Are there any procedural hoops I need to jump through to take on this piece of work? Regards, Ty -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
Ty Newton wrote:> Hi, > I''ve read a few articles about the lack of ''simple'' raidz pool expansion capability in ZFS. I am interested in having a go at developing this functionality. Is anyone working on this at the moment?FYI, Adam Leventhal and I worked out how to do this a while back. Take a look at Adam''s write-up: http://blogs.sun.com/ahl/entry/expand_o_matic_raid_z --matt
Thanks for the link Matt. I had read it already. In fact it was that write up that prompted me to stop swearing about the absence of this feature and actually consider doing it. I was hoping you/Adam would offer to guide me when I need some ''mentoring'' style assistance... I guess if no one is working on this then I''ll setup a development environment and give it a red hot go. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
> Thanks for the link Matt. I had read it already. In fact it was > that write up that prompted me to stop swearing about the absence of > this feature and actually consider doing it. > > I was hoping you/Adam would offer to guide me when I need some > ''mentoring'' style assistance...Absolutely. Please feel free to take a crack at it and we''ll provide assistance as much as we can. Adam -- Adam Leventhal, Fishworks http://blogs.sun.com/ahl
Is there any information about how (? best practice ?) to setup a development environment, compile and test changes to the vdev.>From the info I have read this lives in ''kernel land''. I''m no Solaris expert, nor have I dabbled in kernel coding before; so any newb style help is greatly appreciated. Perhaps I need to look outside of the ZFS doco and more at the general OpenSolaris doco???Thanks, Ty -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
Hi Ty, On Dom, 2009-09-06 at 13:42 -0700, Ty Newton wrote:> Is there any information about how (? best practice ?) to setup a > development environment, compile and test changes to the vdev.Here are a few links to get you started: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/on/devref_toc/ http://opensolaris.org/os/project/indiana/building_on/ http://sstallion.blogspot.com/2009/06/building-onnv-uts-on-opensolaris-200906.html HTH, Ricardo> > >From the info I have read this lives in ''kernel land''. I''m no Solaris > expert, nor have I dabbled in kernel coding before; so any newb style > help is greatly appreciated. Perhaps I need to look outside of the > ZFS doco and more at the general OpenSolaris doco??? > > Thanks, > Ty