[OpenIndiana-discuss] what to setup with 4 matched disks

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Fri, 6 Nov 2020, Harry Putnam wrote:

>>> Now I would like to do some experimenting with some of the other
>>> possible setups.  I'm thinking maybe raidz2 or raidz3.
>>
>> How much data do you have?  For small amounts stick with mirrors.
>
> Small potatoes.. maybe 4 TB total.  things are complicated a bit by
> the fact that my HP xw8600 is not capable of running 3 TB or larger
> discs.  And Is somewhat limited in ports, without some creative
> cobbling.

This limitation likely only applies to boot disks which must be seen 
and understood by the BIOS.  The problem might be solved by adding 
another disc controller which is either used for data storage (only 
known/understood by Illumos) or another disc controller which is only 
used when booting.  The key thing is that the BIOS needs to see the 
boot discs and Illumos needs to understand the actual size and 
properties of the data store disks (without depending on the BIOS).

With only a small number of disks (and to aid human comprehension when 
something goes wrong) I suggest using mirrors with a regular pool 
'scrub' schedule.  With more disks raidz2 starts making sense but 
raidz2 is less flexible.

Bob
-- 
Bob Friesenhahn
bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
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