On Tuesday 04 September 2012 12:44:26 Götz Reinicke wrote: > Hi Tony, > > because I suggest just something very general I post off list :) > > From my POV as I'm currently facing similar setups with different > hardware rolling back from fine granular setups to simple 'bigger' > less complex configurations. (we do have 6 iscsi storages from 2TB > (sun ZFS) up to 32 TB) > > keep it small and simple! :) > > I think you are very familiar with the general problems of big HW > raids and big filesystems like rebuild or check times, but > splitting up and adding more complex layers like multiple raids > joining in lvm etc. makes debugging and general handling very > hard. > > On the other hand, I checked and read a lot about filesystems the > last days being faced with serving user windows samba profiles > with lot of small files and big video/audio data etc. > > Long story short: > > I usually do one raidvolume per hardware raid box; e.g. we use > 16*1TB drives. Raid6 or Raid5 with spare. I did not notice big > performance differences. > > I use LVM to make partitions or I prefer using just one big > partition. > > I tried xfs and ext4 and will go with ext4 as some test went better > for my setup and from what I read it looks not bad :) > > I think you can combine block level devices (like multiple raid > boxes) by LVM into one bigger LV. > > And last but not least: The CPU/RAM/Network of the host serving the > files is also very important! :) > > I noticed, that the same iscsi storage got about 70MB/s on a new > server (xeon multicore), while on the old fileserver it just got > up to 40MB/s. > > > > my2cents :) regards . Götz > > > > May be worth reading: > > http://www.techforce.com.br/news/linux_blog/lvm_raid_xfs_ext3_tunin > g_for_small_files_parallel_i_o_on_debian#.UEPSI1RqYso > > http://monolight.cc/2011/02/linux-filesystems-small-file-performanc > e-on-hdds/ > > http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/28756/what-is-the-most-high > -performance-linux-filesystem-for-storing-a-lot-of-small-fi > > https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ext3 > > https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ext4#Tips_and_tricks > > Am 04.09.12 13:10, schrieb Tony Molloy: > > Hi, > > > > I've just got possession of a Dell PE R720 with 2 MD1200 disk > > enclosures. > > > > Both MD1200 are fully populated with 12 x 3 TB disks > > > > The system will basically be a student file-server running CentOS > > 6.x serving various size files from small c programs to multi > > gigabyte audio and video files over GB ethernet. > > > > The first MD1200 will be configured as the NFS disk. The > > requirements are for 6 fixed equally sized partitions, one for > > each cohort of students. For this I was thinking of splitting the > > MD1200 into 2 RAID5 arrays with a hot spare each. Then > > partitioning each into 3 ext4 partitions. > > > > The second MD1200 will be used to backup the first, using > > BackupPC and for other storage purposes. > > > > As I won't know the storage requirements for the "backup > > partition" and they will probably change over time anyway. I was > > thinking of using LVM for it. So how to partition the MD1200 for > > LVM. I don't want to put all 12 disks in a RAID5 and put a LVM > > volume on it. Can I split it into 2 RAID5 and have a LVM volume > > spanning both. > > > > Any suggestions. > > > > Just remember I'm due to retire at the end of this month so this > > will be my last big job for the Dept. And due to financial > > constraints I will not be replaced. So I will be handing this > > machine over to a co- worker who is basically a Windoze admin > > with only a basic knowledge of Linux so nothing too fancy. ;-) > > > > Thanks, > > > > Tony > > > > > > -- > > > > Tony Molloy > > > > CTO, Dept. of Comp. Sci. > > University of Limerick > > Limerick. > > Ireland > > _______________________________________________ > > CentOS mailing list > > CentOS at centos.org > > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >