On Tue, Oct 30, 2007 at 08:49:01AM -0700, Bill Stouder-Studenmund wrote:
> > Then why is RAID5 slow and a plain disk isn't (when extracting the same
> > pkgsrc tarball)?  I'm trying to find out whether I can use RAID5 or not,
> > that's why I'm asking ;)
> 
> What could be happening is that you're doing a lot of RMW operations when 
> you write metadata. They are slow and add synchronous reads into important 
> i/o points.

That could be it - after the RAID controller and the disks run out of buffer
RAM.

> > (Although I need to find a way to break the 2 TB disklabel barrier first..)
> 
> Disklabels don't break 2 TB. That's why we have wedges.

Could someone please provide a pointer to a wedge tutorial?  Please? :-)

  -jm