[OpenIndiana-discuss] HP N40L configuration as a ZFS server

[Reginald Beardsley]

I just unpacked an N40L and had a look around.  It came w/ a single 2 GB DIMM.  Would 4 GB be sufficient for a generally light load single user environment?  What sort of disk throughput should I expect w/ that?  If I can get good performance over NFS to my Z400 I might move all my user files to the N40L and just use the disk in the Z400 for scratch space.  Of course, then I'll need another N40L for a backup server ;-)

As I read things, I can create some small (e.g. 100 GB) slices on each of 4 3-4 TB disks w/ the rest of each disk in a single slice.  Can one create a 4-way mirrored rpool w/ all the rest in a 4 slice RAIDZ pool?  Would a 2-way rpool and a 2-way log pool be better use of disk space?  

I'm running a 2-way rpool and single disk scratch pool on my Sol 10 box and a single disk pool on the OI box right now.  Data moves from the OI internet system to the Sol 10 system by means of a ZFS pool on a USB hard drive.

Am I missing something?  Has anyone done a writeup relevant to this sort of thing I should read?  Andy provided a good bit of advice already which gave me confidence I wouldn't end up w/ shelfware.

Also is eSATA port replication still not working outside of Windows?  I've got a 4 slot eSATA/USB box sitting idle that it would be nice to be able to use for making backups.

Thanks.

Have Fun!
Reg