zfs discuss - Jul 2008 - ZFS/Install related question

Hi there,

I''m currently setting up a new system to my lab. 4 SATA drives would be
turned into the main file system (ZFS?) running on a soft raid (raid-z?).

My main target is reliability, my experience with Linux SoftRaid was
catastrophic and the array could no be restored after some testing simulating
power failures (thank god I did the tests before relying on that...)

For what I''ve seen so far, Solaris cannot boot from a raid-z system. Is
that correct?

In this case, what needs to be out of the array? Example, on a Linux system, I
could set the /boot to be on a old 256MB USB flash.(As long the boot loader and
kernel were out of the array the system would boot.) What are the requirements
for booting from the USB but loading a system on the array?

Second, how do I proceed during the Install process?

I know it''s a little bit weird but I must confess I''m doing it
on purpose. :-)

I thank you in advance
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Get a cheap 5th SATA drive to act as your boot drive, install Solaris on that,
and then let ZFS use the whole of the remaining 4 drives.

That gives you performance benefits, and it means it''s very easy to
recover if your boot drive fails - just re-install Solaris and "zpool
import" the raid array.  The raid data is stored on the drives so you can
even take those 4 drives and fit them to another machine if you need the data
quick.  ZFS doesn''t even care what order the drives are attached in.

To install Solaris, just boot from the DVD and follow the prompts.  I managed
that as a windows admin with no Linux or Solaris experience so you should be
fine :-)
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Andre wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> I''m currently setting up a new system to my lab. 4 SATA drives
would be turned into the main file system (ZFS?) running on a soft raid
(raid-z?).
> 
> My main target is reliability, my experience with Linux SoftRaid was
catastrophic and the array could no be restored after some testing simulating
power failures (thank god I did the tests before relying on that...)
> 
> For what I''ve seen so far, Solaris cannot boot from a raid-z
system. Is that correct?
yes, zfs can boot of a mirror or single disk ( not raidz or above ), actually
zfs root can
only boot of a slice in the disk, you can make the whole disk into a slice as
such.
Reason being that zfs does not boot of EFI labelled disks only SMI currently,
you can use
zpool attach to add disk to setup as wel, if you want to convert to a mirror.
i tend to suggest a mirror for reliability.

Not overly clear to me what you want, you say the 4 drives are going to be
turned into the
main file system, so is this what you will be using for root ( ie booting ) or
are there
other disks you will be using to boot.
Also what solaris release is this ie zfs root will be in s10 update 6,or is in
current
nevada builds.

Enda
> 
> In this case, what needs to be out of the array? Example, on a Linux
system, I could set the /boot to be on a old 256MB USB flash.(As long the boot
loader and kernel were out of the array the system would boot.) What are the
requirements for booting from the USB but loading a system on the array?
> 
> Second, how do I proceed during the Install process?
> 
> I know it''s a little bit weird but I must confess I''m
doing it on purpose. :-)
> 
> I thank you in advance
>  
>  
> This message posted from opensolaris.org
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