On 05/12/15 02:32, David Brownlee wrote:
On 11 May 2015 at 23:46, William A. Mahaffey III <wam%hiwaay.net@localhost> wrote:Howdy, list :-). A (another ?) noob here. I am preparing to install NetBSD 6.1.5 on a new server, AMD C32 based, 4256EE CPU, Supermicro H8SCM mbd, 6 X 1 TB 2.5" HDD's, to be partitioned/RAIDed (software). Firstly, is this the correct list to post what could be a blizzard of noob-ish install questions ? If not, where, please ? Either way, I downloaded both of the 6.1.5 boot ISO's. The online docs mention installing from a CD or floppy, but no mention of a USB stick network install, my preference. Is this in fact feasible ? If so, is it documented anywhere ? Does the installer provide for possibly complex partitioning during install via shell access or something similar ? For reference, I am writing this on a FreeBSD 9.3Rp13 box, setup (last summer) similarly to what I want to do w/ this NetBSD server. This box has 4 X 1 TB 2.5" HDD's, partitioned into /boot, swap, /, /usr, & /home, with /usr & /home RAID0-ed. The installer had a point where you could pop into a shell & execute shell commands (or script) to complete the partitioning w/o any fat-fingering of delicate, tedious, repetitive commands. I am planning on /boot, swap, /, /usr, /var, & /home for the server (5 slices per drive, with / RAID1-ed from 2 partitions, /usr RAID1-ed from the other 4 of that size, /boot RAID1-ed from 6 slices, 1 per drive, & /home & /var RAID5-ed from 6 slices, 1 per drive). Thanks in advance for any & all input.If you are using RAID5 I would strongly recommend keeping to "power-of-two + 1" components, to keep the stripe size as a nice power of two, otherwise performance is... significantly impaired.
Hmmmm .... Could you amplify on that point a bit ? I am intending to maximize available storage & have already procured the mbd & 6 drives, but I could rethink things if my possibly hasty choices would be too burdensome ....
If you do not need to maximise the space you will always get better performance from RAID1 (or RAID10). For that I would RAID1 the disks in pairs, then RAID0 two of them to give a 1TB and fast 2TB storage units, which would them be partitioned up as needed. It also makes it simpler to later replace the pair or the four disks while leaving the other set.
I do want to maximize storage space, will go RAID5 almost certainly for my largest storage pool, /home.
As long as you are below the 2TB limit for any given component you can use disklabels which are much simpler than gpt with wedges. NetBSD is moving more to wedges, but netbsd-6 is probably not the version to do it on by choice :) On that note I would probably put a netbsd-7 BETA on the box and just update when the full release comes out.
I want the (possibly perceived) reliability of the 6.1.5 over anything called BETA :-/ ....
If you want to maximise space with some redundancy then as you say, RAID5 is the way to go for the bulk of the storage. A while back I setup a machine with 5 * 2TB disks with netbsd-6, with small RAID1 partitions for root and the bulk as RAID5 http://abs0d.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/setting-up-8tb-netbsd-file-server.html (wow, was that really four years ago) - in your position I might keep one 1TB as a scratch/build space and then RAID up the rest. If you have time definitely experiment, get a feel for the different performance available from the different options.
*Wow*, another fabulous resource. Your blog documents almost verbatim what I have in mind. I am going w/ 6 drives (already procured, 6 SATA3 slots on the mbd, done deal), but philosophically very close to what you describe. 1 question: if you were doing this again today, would it be fdisk or GPT ? I think I am looking at 4 partitions per drive, ~16 GB for / (RAID1, 2 drives) & /usr (4 drives, RAID10), 16 GB for swap (kernel driver, all 6 drives), 16 - 32 GB for /var (RAID5, all 6 drives), & the rest for /home (RAID5, all 6 drives). TIA & thanks again.
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William A. Mahaffey III
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"The M1 Garand is without doubt the finest implement of war
ever devised by man."
-- Gen. George S. Patton Jr.