Flexible fault-tolerant storage for new system - Many questions

[Andrew Fremantle]

Hello,

I'm wondering what is the current "correct" way to implement 
fault-tolerant storage on FreeBSD? I know that in ages past, it was 
vinum, or vinum patched up for GEOM, gvinum.

I just set up a new server with gvinum, and I've already had it crash 
once, which makes me very wary of putting the machine into production.

According to this forum thread,
http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=48430

vinum is all but dead, and the way forward is direct GEOM 
implementations. I'm somewhat distressed at the almost total absence of 
GEOM documentation, at least as compared to vinum. Should I re-do the 
server using GEOM instead of gvinum? I want a configuration something 
like the following :

/dev/gvinum/root on / (ufs, local) (6-way mirror, all drives BIOS bootable)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local) 
/dev/gvinum/tmp on /tmp (ufs, local, soft-updates) (3-way stripe 
mirrored on 3-way stripe)
/dev/gvinum/usr on /usr (ufs, local, soft-updates)  (3-way stripe 
mirrored on 3-way stripe)
/dev/gvinum/var on /var (ufs, local, soft-updates) (3-way stripe 
mirrored on 3-way stripe)
/dev/gvinum/home on /home (ufs, local, soft-updates)  (3-way stripe 
mirrored on 3-way stripe)
/dev/gvinum/software on /software (ufs, local, soft-updates) (6-way RAID5)
/dev/gvinum/bigraid on /bigraid (ufs, local, soft-updates) (6-way RAID5)

My inclination is to make two BIOS partitions (slices) on each disk, one 
for OS related partitions and one for non-OS partitions. I'm not at all 
certain how GEOM relates and interacts with BSD Disklabels. ( Would I be 
better off with three GEOM "devices" (One RAID1, one RAID1+0, one 
RAID3), with multiple partitions on them, or many GEOM "devices" each 
containing one filesystem?) Will direct GEOM implementation be more 
stable than vinum? How does direct GEOM perform compared to vinum? Is 
there any chance sysinstall supports installing onto GEOM volumes? Is 
anyone aware of any of this stuff being documented more than is in the 
Handbook? I'd love to digest a primer before trying to jump into the paint.

My apologies if this makes you mutter "rtFM!". If you would be so kind 
as to direct me to the manual, I will gladly read it.

- Andrew