FreeBSD 5.x raid...

[David Kelly]

On Thu, Jul 14, 2005 at 06:24:44PM +0300, Casper wrote:
> 
> 
> David Kelly wrote:
> >On Thu, Jul 14, 2005 at 03:55:38PM +0200, FreeBSD questions mailing list 
> >wrote:
> >
> >>'plex org raid1 512k' is invalid
> >>you should use:
> >>'plex org concat'
> >
> >
> >Uh, he wants all data on one SATA drive and a mirror on the other. 
> >Therefore he does not want to "concat" but to "mirror". The man page
> >examples often complicatate things by concating some drives then
> >mirroring the concated.
> 
> Yep, thanx, I have changed:
> 
> drive a device /dev/ad4c
> drive b device /dev/ad6c
> volume www
> plex org mirror
> sd length 165g drive a
> sd length 165g drive b
> 
> but:
>  vinum create -f www.vinum
>    4: plex org mirror
> ** 4 Invalid plex organization: Invalid argument
>    5: sd length 165g drive a

[snip]

You stopped reading too soon.

> >I never quite figured out the manual method of configuring [g]vinum. The
> >"SIMPLIFIED CONFIGURATION" section of the manual got me running. I think
> >this how he would want to do it.

[...]

> >First, I don't think its wise to use partition "c". Use sysinstall to
> >create the single largest partition possible and it'll be on "d".
> >Partition "c" has special meaning and many times its used because the
> >device driver fakes a disk label with "c" when a real disk label is
> >missing. If the driver is always able to fake a correct and identical
> >label then you are fine, but its better to write a real one on disk.

Once again, "do not use the 'c' partition."

> >Creating a gvinum mirror is as simple as this:
> >
> ># gvinum mirror -v /dev/ad4d /dev/ad6d

Literally that one line above from the shell as root. No "www.vinum"
file is used.

Also vinum is unsupported and known broken for many in 5.x. My machine
is also one PATA and two SATA drives with both SATA on striped (not
mirrored) gvinum slice. Vinum gave me no end of problems last year in
that its configuration was often lost between reboots. Gvinum is less
complete but what is there does work. Gvinum has never failed for me.

> >Your new slice will probably be /dev/gvinum/vinum0, so edit /etc/fstab
> >appropriately.

Using the simplified interface where gvinum does all the plex
assignments one doesn't have the same control over how things are named.
Doesn't matter as one has the last say as to where the fs is mounted.

Use the simplified mirror command to create your configuration. Then use
list to save a copy elsewhere, such as in www.vinum, for emergency
reference.

-- 
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly at HiWAAY.net
========================================================================
Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.