<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 11:59 AM, vamythguy <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:vamythguy@gmail.com">vamythguy@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><div><br></div></div>So I guess part of my issue with the RAID stuff is how I've got 3x250 and 1x300 in a RAID5 array, so I'm missing 50G. This is because I had a 250 go bad and replaced it with a 300. Ideally, that extra 50 would've just been brought in and be usable - even if not RAID5. Maybe I'm looking for too much. I've had problems before with making a decision one way and then not being able to change it (because of the size of the filesystem), so I'm trying to be smarter about it.<br>
<br>All of which skips my other issue, that being the reclamation of that orphaned array and figuring-out how to get back at it (given I've had issues in the past with moving the disks of an array to a new mobo, a new instance of mdadm, whatever, and having it not be recognized).<br>
<br>Finally, is a multi-port eSATA solution a good way to externally house these drives? Is AoE a real option?<br><br>I know, I'm all over the place here...<br>
<br></blockquote></div><br>I'm sure my response will be all over the place too.<br><br>My setup for reference:<br>-- Older Array(s): 6x300.<br> Partitioned into multiple arrays, boot (raid1-ext2 - 6 way :-) ), root (raid5-ext3), diskless(raid5-ext3), music (raid5-xfs), "stuff"(radi5-xfs)<br>
-- New Array: 4x750 video(raid5-xfs) - in 5 bay hot sway chassis, running 5->1 Port multiplier on 1x PCIe card. <br><br>Some comments in no particular order:<br><br>- I don't like LVM on RAID. Extra layer of SW. In my testing..it was much slower. Doesn't really provide much benefit. Although if you already have it, then I guess you'll want to stick with it. I ditched it when i grew my 1st array from 3x300 LVM to 3x600 multiple partitions.<br>
<br>-- You can resize RAID5 now. In my experience it works very well. There are two essential scenarios:<br><br>Repartitioning Arrays within disks: This is interesting procedure.. but worked well. You had to force fail each drive from the online array, then re-partition [delete all the partitions] on the raw drive, then add the drive back to each array, wait for re-sync then rinse-repeat for all drives. This way you can completely move partitions, and resize them bigger (not smaller obviously). Once all "partitions" within an array are re-sized, you can then re-size the filesystem. One fs i used forced me to reboot. :( <br>
<br>Adding Disk: This is the new one.. It's very slick. I grew my 2nd array from 3 drives to 4, completely hot & online, while recording many GB of Olympics.<br><br>-- As far as RAID5 for mythtv & HDDs being reliable.. I disagree. I had 4 non-raided hdds die in the span of 12 months.. that's when i went to a main fileserver for all storage. Since then I've had 2 of those 10 (+1) drives die, quickly replaced, no data loss. Yes, it's it not the end of the world when you loose recordings... but you can explain that to my wife. <br>
<br>-- I would recommend a separate media for the OS. Mine's on the 1st array, and it's annoying there if i want to change something. Recently I built a system for someone with root on a IDE-> CF. That worked well.<br>
<br>-- The 5->1 port multiplier stuff is pretty cool. Coupled with the hot swap chassis. I was able to cram another whole array into a server with already 6 drives. <br><br>-- The allocation of /dev/sd?? should not be an issue for an array. The order at which my drives come up is quite variable, and they get different letters all the time.<br>
<br>I would be glad to elaborate on anything if people want. My next big debate is what to eventually replace the 300s with.<br>--Dragon<br><br><br><br>