[zfs] an interesting survey -- the zpool with most disks you have ever built

[Fred Liu]

2016-03-07 13:55 GMT+08:00 Julian Elischer <julian at freebsd.org>:
> On 6/03/2016 9:30 PM, Fred Liu wrote:
>>
>> 2016-03-05 0:01 GMT+08:00 Freddie Cash <fjwcash at gmail.com>:
>>
>>> On Mar 4, 2016 2:05 AM, "Fred Liu" <fred.fliu at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> 2016-03-04 13:47 GMT+08:00 Freddie Cash <fjwcash at gmail.com>:
>>>>>
>>>>> Currently, I just use a simple coordinate system. Columns are letters,
>>>
>>> rows are numbers.
>>>>>
>>>>> "smartos-discuss at lists.smartos.org" <smartos-discuss at lists.smartos.org
>>>>
>>>> 、
>>>
>>> developer <developer at open-zfs.org>、
>>>
>>> illumos-developer <developer at lists.illumos.org>、
>>>
>>> omnios-discuss <omnios-discuss at lists.omniti.com>、
>>>
>>> Discussion list for OpenIndiana <openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org>、
>>>
>>> illumos-zfs <zfs at lists.illumos.org>、
>>>
>>> "zfs-discuss at list.zfsonlinux.org" <zfs-discuss at list.zfsonlinux.org>、
>>>
>>> "freebsd-fs at FreeBSD.org" <freebsd-fs at freebsd.org>、
>>>
>>> "zfs-devel at freebsd.org" <zfs-devel at freebsd.org>
>>>
>>>>> Each disk is partitioned using GPT with the first (only) partition
>>>
>>> starting at 1 MB and covering the whole disk, and labelled with the
>>> column/row where it is located (disk-a1, disk-g6, disk-p3, etc).
>>>>
>>>> [Fred]: So you manually pull off all the drives one by one to locate
>>>
>>> them?
>>>
>>> When putting the system together for the first time, I insert each disk
>>> one at a time, wait for it to be detected, partition it, then label it
>>> based on physical location.  Then do the next one.  It's just part of the
>>> normal server build process, whether it has 2 drives, 20 drives, or 200
>>> drives.
>>>
>>> We build all our own servers from off-the-shelf parts; we don't buy
>>> anything pre-built from any of the large OEMs.
>>>
>> [Fred]: Gotcha!
>>
>>
>>>>> The pool is created using the GPT labels, so the label shows in "zpool
>>>
>>> list" output.
>>>>
>>>> [Fred]:  What will the output look like?
>>>
>>> From our smaller backups server, with just 24 drive bays:
>>>
>>> $ zpool status storage
>>>
>>>    pool: storage
>>>
>>>   state: ONLINE
>>>
>>> status: Some supported features are not enabled on the pool. The pool can
>>>
>>> still be used, but some features are unavailable.
>>>
>>> action: Enable all features using 'zpool upgrade'. Once this is done,
>>>
>>> the pool may no longer be accessible by software that does not support
>>>
>>> the features. See zpool-features(7) for details.
>>>
>>>    scan: scrub canceled on Wed Feb 17 12:02:20 2016
>>>
>>> config:
>>>
>>>
>>> NAME             STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
>>>
>>> storage          ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>   raidz2-0       ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-a1  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-a2  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-a3  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-a4  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-a5  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-a6  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>   raidz2-1       ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-b1  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-b2  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-b3  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-b4  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-b5  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-b6  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>   raidz2-2       ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-c1  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-c2  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-c3  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-c4  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-c5  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-c6  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>   raidz2-3       ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-d1  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-d2  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-d3  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-d4  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-d5  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>     gpt/disk-d6  ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>> cache
>>>
>>>   gpt/cache0     ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>   gpt/cache1     ONLINE       0     0     0
>>>
>>>
>>> errors: No known data errors
>>>
>>> The 90-bay systems look the same, just that the letters go all the way to
>>> p (so disk-p1 through disk-p6).  And there's one vdev that uses 3 drives
>>> from each chassis (7x 6-disk vdev only uses 42 drives of the 45-bay
>>> chassis, so there's lots of spares if using a single chassis; using two
>>> chassis, there's enough drives to add an extra 6-disk vdev).
>>>
>> [Fred]: It looks like the gpt label shown in "zpool status" only works in
>> FreeBSD/FreeNAS. Are you using FreeBSD/FreeNAS? I can't find the similar
>> possibilities in Illumos/Linux.
>
>
> Ah that's a trick.. FreeBSD exports an actual /dev/gpt/{you-label-goes-here}
> for each labeled partition it finds.
> So it's not ZFS doing anything special.. it's what FreeBSD is calling the
> partition.
>

Super cool!

Fred