Gluster users - Apr 2013 - rebalance and its alternatives

Hi glusterfs users,

For a replicated volume with a brick pair nearly full and several fresh
and empty bricks just added do you think the following would work ?

Walk the nearly-full brick filesystem to find files on it. Use this list
to move them one by one away from the glusterfs volume to temp space,
and then move them back in.
I'm hoping this achieves a brick-targetted rebalance.

Would this work ?

Reason i'm looking into this solution is that a regular rebalance just
takes too long. Long as in 100+ days.

Do you know of other alternatives ? Or to make rebalance start
rebalancing files right away ?

regards,
   Hans Lambermont
-- 
Hans Lambermont | Senior Architect
(t) +31407370104 (w) www.shapeways.com

On 04/25/2013 12:57 AM, Hans Lambermont wrote:
> Hi glusterfs users,
>
> For a replicated volume with a brick pair nearly full and several fresh
> and empty bricks just added do you think the following would work ?
>
> Walk the nearly-full brick filesystem to find files on it. Use this list
> to move them one by one away from the glusterfs volume to temp space,
> and then move them back in.
> I'm hoping this achieves a brick-targetted rebalance.
>
> Would this work ?
This should normally work.
>
> Reason i'm looking into this solution is that a regular rebalance just
> takes too long. Long as in 100+ days.
>
> Do you know of other alternatives ? Or to make rebalance start
> rebalancing files right away ?

What is the size of your volume? Can you please provide details of the 
glusterfs version and the command that was issued for rebalancing?

Thanks,
Vijay