Hi all, I have been reading ZFS discussion for a while now and I''m planning a small file server (to be used by only a few people). I''m fairly new to Solaris and OpenSolaris, and I''m thinking of using Solaris 10 08/07. I have a few questions I haven''t been able to figure out yet, and would be grateful for any help that anyone can offer. My basic plan is to have a root file system, and several separate disks in a pool for ZFS. 1. For my root file system, I would like to have some redundancy. This file system wouldn''t be ZFS, since ZFS boot isn''t supported in Solaris 10 at the moment. I was thinking of using a RAID controller with two mirrored disks. Does this make sense? I would like replacing a failed disk to be as easy as possible, and I''m not sure how hard it would be to setup and maintain a software mirror of the root disks. 2. For the data (ZFS pool) disks, I have read that it makes sense to have two disk controllers if doing a mirror, so that at least one disk from each vdev is still online if a controller fails. Should I still have two controllers if I''m doing raidz2? 3. Can anyone recommend a PCI-Express SATA controller that will work with 64-bit x86 Solaris 10? Thanks a lot for any help you can provide, and for taking the time to read this :) This message posted from opensolaris.org
This one might be better in the help forum/list :) You will probably want to use the latest SXDE for that instead of Solaris 10. It is a recent well-tested SXCE which is much newer than Solaris 10. Depending on how good the Super Project Indiana OpenSolaris Milestone 1 Turbo turns out at the end of this month, you could use that instead. Don''t worry about controller redundancy when using raidz... you''d need one controller per disk to get any reliability benefit, and who cares for that? If your one controller goes bad, you just replace it with any working controller and import the pool, then you''re good to go. This message posted from opensolaris.org
Ima wrote:> > 3. Can anyone recommend a PCI-Express SATA controller that will work with 64-bit x86 Solaris 10? >I believe these cards support SAS and SATA devices just fine: http://www.sun.com/storagetek/storage_networking/hba/sas/
1) I would use soft-mirror: During install dedicate s7 to metadb (~10MB is plenty) cat /etc/lvm/md.tab /dev/md/dsk/d0 -m /dev/md/dsk/d10 /dev/md/dsk/d10 1 1 /dev/dsk/c0d0s0 /dev/md/dsk/d20 1 1 /dev/dsk/c0d1s0 # metadb -a -c 3 /dev/dsk/c0d0s7 /dev/dsk/c0d1s7 # /sbin/installgrub /boot/grub/stage1 /boot/grub/stage2 /dev/dsk/c0d1s0 # metainit d10 # metainit d0 # metaroot d0 # reboot # metattach d0 d20 Watch i syncing: # metastat *Note!* Without monitoring, redundancy is nothing but delayed desaster. It is useless unless you know a redundant component has failed, and you replace and fix it in time - no matter whether it is soft or hard raid, raid0, raid5, raidz or raidz2! Periodically running metastat and look for fgrep ''State:'' | fgrep -v ''State: Okay'' and trigger a mail or alert is a good idea. Perl is handy for such tasks.. When it happens: a) replace the disk and b) metareplace -e d0 dx0 where dx0 is the disk metastat complaied about, and watch i resync with: c) metastat 2) Well, controllers does not break anything near as often as disks; but it may happen. So that is up to your cost/benefit judgment. 3) Forget PCI-Express -- if you have a free PCI-X (or PCI)-slot. Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 (PCI-X cards are (usually) plain-PCI-compatible; and this one is). It has 8 ports, is natively plug-and-play-suported and does not cost more than twice a si3132, and costs only a fraction of other >2-port-cards where you pay for raid-chip-sets you don''t need or even can''t use.. si3132 may be an option but I can''t recommend it. SAS-controllers are in another league I think; 3-5 times the price of AOC-SAT2-MV8. This message posted from opensolaris.org
Thanks a lot for your help everyone :) This message posted from opensolaris.org
> 3) Forget PCI-Express -- if you have a free PCI-X (or > PCI)-slot. Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 (PCI-X cards are > (usually) plain-PCI-compatible; and this one is). It > has 8 ports, is natively plug-and-play-suported and > does not cost more than twice a si3132, and costs > only a fraction of other >2-port-cards where you > pay for raid-chip-sets you don''t need or even can''t > use.. > si3132 may be an option but I can''t recommend it. > SAS-controllers are in another league I think; 3-5 > times the price of AOC-SAT2-MV8.That is a really neat suggestion, I had no idea that card was compatible with regular old pci slots. You can get generic 4-port silicon image 3114 PCI cards for like $30, but that Supermicro for $100 is also a great idea. This message posted from opensolaris.org
Ima wrote:> Hi all, > I have been reading ZFS discussion for a while now and I''m planning a small file server (to be used by only a few people). I''m fairly new to Solaris and OpenSolaris, and I''m thinking of using Solaris 10 08/07. > > I have a few questions I haven''t been able to figure out yet, and would be grateful for any help that anyone can offer. > > My basic plan is to have a root file system, and several separate disks in a pool for ZFS. > > 1. For my root file system, I would like to have some redundancy. This file system wouldn''t be ZFS, since ZFS boot isn''t supported in Solaris 10 at the moment. I was thinking of using a RAID controller with two mirrored disks. Does this make sense? I would like replacing a failed disk to be as easy as possible, and I''m not sure how hard it would be to setup and maintain a software mirror of the root disks. > > > 2. For the data (ZFS pool) disks, I have read that it makes sense to have two disk controllers if doing a mirror, so that at least one disk from each vdev is still online if a controller fails. Should I still have two controllers if I''m doing raidz2?Is this a small machine, such as a typical PC with a single motherboard? If so, then don''t worry about having multiple controllers for at least two reasons: 1. some BIOS won''t allow boot access to more than one controller 2. the affect on availability is very small because the reliability of modern controllers is very high, especially SAS/SATA controllers Do worry about the disks themselves, as they should be the least reliable component. -- richard> 3. Can anyone recommend a PCI-Express SATA controller that will work with 64-bit x86 Solaris 10? > > > Thanks a lot for any help you can provide, and for taking the time to read this :) > > > This message posted from opensolaris.org > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss