zfs discuss - Apr 2011 - Custom configuration for a small computer

My goal is to optimally have two 1TB drives inside of a rather small computer of
mine, running Solaris, which can sync with and be a backup of my somewhat
portable 2TB drive. Up to this point I have been using the 2TB drive without any
redundancy, and I want to change that ASAP.

Now, as the computer only has two SATA ports, I will have to use a small amount
of one of the internal 1TB drives to hold the OS. This brings me to the first
issue: how can I do that? When installing Solaris I seemingly successfully
created a 30GB partition at the beginning of the drive, and yet when booted
rpool claims that it''s in /dev/dsk/c10d0s0 (that is, slice vs.
partition). How am I supposed to then use c10d0p2 for my backup pool?

Once I solve the above and successfully set up a striped pool of the two 1TB
drives, what is the best method to mirror the two 1TB drives with the 2TB drive?
Must I split the 2TB drive into two separate partitions?

As well, does "zpool detach" allow me to then connect the detached 2TB
drive to another system for regular usage?

Thank you in advance,

Daxter

On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 4:16 AM, Daxter <xovatdev at gmail.com>
wrote:
> My goal is to optimally have two 1TB drives inside of a rather small
computer of mine, running Solaris, which can sync with and be a backup of my
somewhat portable 2TB drive. Up to this point I have been using the 2TB drive
without any redundancy, and I want to change that ASAP.
>
> Now, as the computer only has two SATA ports, I will have to use a small
amount of one of the internal 1TB drives to hold the OS. This brings me to the
first issue: how can I do that? When installing Solaris I seemingly successfully
created a 30GB partition at the beginning of the drive, and yet when booted
rpool claims that it''s in /dev/dsk/c10d0s0 (that is, slice vs.
partition).
Slices are created inside the partition you choose during installation/
> How am I supposed to then use c10d0p2 for my backup pool?
Just create a new pool for your data

zpool create ...

zfs can recognize and use any available file or block device that the
OS recognize (which includes slices, partitions, raw disk, etc).
>
> Once I solve the above and successfully set up a striped pool of the two
1TB drives, what is the best method to mirror the two 1TB drives with the 2TB
drive? Must I split the 2TB drive into two separate partitions?
>
> As well, does "zpool detach" allow me to then connect the
detached 2TB drive to another system for regular usage?
If you''re intending to use the external driver regularly for other
purposes (not just a "backup" that you store somewhere safe), then
it''s probably easier to just use snapshots and incremental
send/receive.

-- 
Fajar