Can partitions span more than one drive?

[Greg Larkin]

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John Almberg wrote:
> Now that I've got my rsnapshot backup server working beautifully,
> backing up several servers to a central backup server (I like this a
> lot), I have a problem...
> 
> I built my backup server from a machine I had lying around. It has two
> 140G hard drives. I dedicated one drive to a /backup partition.
> Unfortunately, that is now running at 88% capacity... i.e., only 16G
> left...
> 
> Now that I know this approach is going to work, I'm going to run out and
> buy a big drive.
> 
> Question: is it possible to just expand my existing /backup partition to
> encompass both the current drive and the new drive? I'm guessing not,
> since Chapter 8 in "Absolute FreeBSD" says that a partition is part of a
> slice, which is part of a physical drive, but maybe some bright person
> has come up with an app that overcomes that limitation.
> 
> Thanks: John

Hi John,

I haven't done much with any of these solutions yet, but I think each
one can do what you want, with various pros/cons:

Vinum: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/vinum-vinum.html

RAID0 striping:
http://www.freebsdwiki.net/index.php/RAID0,_Software,_How_to_setup

ZFS: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/filesystems-zfs.html


Hope that helps get you started,
Greg
- --
Greg Larkin

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