Why are so many people using 4.x?

[Andrea Venturoli]

Michael Hughes wrote:

>> PII machine.  Am I better off using an  older version for such old
>> equipment?  If so, do any particular versions  stand out?

>   I use vinum on two of my machine and most of what I have seen on the
> list about gvinum isn't good.  That is the main reson I haven't
> upgraded.
> 
>   Is there anyone out there using gvinum on 6.x that can shed some light
> on how well it is working now?

Finally an interesting point.
vinum is not supported anymore after 5.3 or so and was bound to be 
replaced by gvinum, which AFAICT is not that ready for production use. 
I'd be happy if anyone could prove me wrong.

There are alternatives, though: apart from hardware RAID, gstripe and 
gmirror provide RAID 0 and 1. We are still without any software 
replacement for RAID 5, AFAIK.
Bear in mind that, in order to do an upgrade, you'll have to backup, 
start from scratch, and restore.


So, to summarize:
_ building a new machine only has a show stopper if you intend to use 
software RAID 5; in that case you might want to use 4.11, but this is 
gonna have many downsides;
_ upgrading a 4.11 software RAID 5 machine is going to be some hell;
_ upgrading a RAID 0 or 1 vinum box can really be done, but needs some 
times;
_ upgrading an HW RAID/no RAID box or building a new RAID 0/RAID 1/HW 
RAID/no RAID box poses no problems at all.

  bye
	av.