On Apr 12, 2011, at 8:53 AM, Rudi Ahlers <Rudi at SoftDux.com> wrote: > On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 2:47 PM, Marian Marinov <mm at yuhu.biz> wrote: >> >> Steve, >> I'm managing machines with 30TB of storage for more then two years. And with >> good reporting and reaction we have never had to run fsck. >> >> However I'm sure that if you have to run fsck on so big file systems, it will >> be fater to rebuild the array from other storage then waiting for a few weeks >> to finish. >> >> On machines like that I use CentOS but I'm pratitioning them before the >> install with a rescue live cd that I have created for me. >> >> Marian >> >> _______________________________________________ > > As matter of interest, what hardware do you use? i.e. what CPU's, size > of RAM and RAID cards do you use on this size system? > > Everyone always recommends to use smaller RAID arrays than one big fat > one. So, I'm interested to know what you use, and how effective it > works. i.e. if that 30TB was actively used by many hosts how does it > cope? Or is it just archival storage? I would never create a RAID5/6 greater then 8 disks. Usually I create a 6 or 7 disk RAID5 which means I can fit 2 in a 15 disk enclosure and have a hot spare and stripe them. The more RAID5 sets you have the greater the write IOPS you can achieve. Though for max IOPS nothing beats RAID10. -Ross