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Rich Freeman posted on Sat, 22 Jun 2013 07:12:25 -0400 as excerpted: |
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> Multiple-level redundancy just seems to be past the point of diminishing |
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> returns to me. If I wanted to spend that kind of money I'd probably |
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> spend it differently. |
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My point was that for me, it wasn't multiple level redundancy. It was |
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simply device redundancy (raid), and fat-finger redundancy (backups), on |
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the same set of drives so I was protected from either scenario. |
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The fire/flood scenario would certainly get me if I didn't have offsite |
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backups, but just as you call multiple redundancy past your point of |
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diminishing returns, I call the fire/flood scenario past mine. If that |
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happens, I figure I'll have far more important things to worry about than |
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rebuilding my computer for awhile. And chances are, when I do get around |
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to it, things will be progressed enough that much of the data won't be |
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worth so much any more anyway. Besides, the real /important/ data is in |
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my head. What's worth rebuilding, will be nearly as easy to rebuild due |
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to what's in my head, as it would be to go thru what's now historical |
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data and try to pick up the pieces, sorting thru what's still worth |
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keeping around and what's not. |
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Tho as I said, I do/did keep an additional level of backup on that 1 TB |
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drive, but it's on-site too, and while not in the computer, it's |
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generally nearby enough that it'd be lost too in case of flood/fire. |
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It's more a convenience than a real backup, and I don't really keep it |
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upto date, but if it survived and what's in the computer itself didn't, I |
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do have old copies of much of my data, simply because it's still there |
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from the last time I used that drive as convenient temporary storage |
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while I switched things around. |
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> However, I do agree that mdadm should support more flexible arrays. For |
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> example, my boot partition is raid1 (since grub doesn't support anything |
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> else), and I have it set up across all 5 of my drives. However, the |
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> reality is that only two get used and the others are treated only as |
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> spares. So, that is just a waste of space, and it is actually more |
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> annoying from a config perspective because it would be really nice if my |
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> system could boot from an arbitrary drive. |
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Three points on that. First, obviously you're not on grub2 yet. It |
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handles all sorts of raid, lvm, newer filesystems like btrfs (and zfs for |
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those so inclined), various filesystems, etc, natively, thru its modules. |
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Second, /boot is an interesting case. Here, originally (with grub1 and |
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the raid6s across 4 drives) I setup a 4-drive raid1. But, I actually |
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installed grub to the boot sector of all four drives, and tested each one |
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booting just to grub by itself (the other drives off), so I knew it was |
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using its own grub, not pointed somewhere else. |
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But I was still worried about it as while I could boot from any of the |
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drives, they were a single raid1, which meant no fat-finger redundancy, |
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and doing a usable backup of /boot isn't so easy. |
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So I think it was when I switched from raid6 to raid1 for almost the |
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entire system, that I switched to dual dual-drive raid1s for /boot as |
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well, and of course tested booting to each one alone again, just to be |
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sure. That gave me fat-finger redundancy, as well as added convenience |
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since I run git kernels, and I was able to update just the one dual-drive |
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raid1 /boot with the git kernels, then update the backup with the |
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releases once they came out, which made for a nice division of stable |
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kernel vs pre-release there. |
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That dual dual-drive raid-1 setup proved very helpful when I upgraded to |
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grub2 as well, since I was able to play around with it on the one dual- |
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drive raid1 /boot while the other one stayed safely bootable grub1 until |
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I had grub2 working the way I wanted on the working /boot, and had again |
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installed and tested it on both component hard drives to boot to grub and |
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to the full raid1 system just from the one drive by itself, with the |
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others entirely shut off. |
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Only when I had both drives of the working /boot up and running grub2, |
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did I mounth the backup /boot as well, and copy over the now working |
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config to it, before running grub2-install on those two drives. |
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Of course somewhere along the way, IIRC at the same time as the raid6 to |
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raid1 conversion as well, I had also upgraded to gpt partitions from |
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traditional mbr. When I did I had the foresight to create BOTH dedicated |
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BIOS boot partitions and EFI partitions on each of the four drives. |
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grub1 wasn't using them, but that was fine; they were small (tiny). That |
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made the upgrade to grub2 even easier, since grub2 could install its core |
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into the dedicated BIOS partitions. The EFI partitions remain unused to |
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this day, but as I said, they're tiny, and with gpt they're specifically |
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typed and labeled so they can't mix me up, either. |
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(BTW, talking about data integrity, if you're not on GPT yet, do consider |
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it. It keeps a second partition table at the end of the drive as well as |
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the one at the beginning, and unlike mbr they're checksummed, so |
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corruption is detected. It also kills the primary/secondary/extended |
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difference so no more worrying about that, and allows partition labels, |
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much like filesystem labels, which makes tracking and managing what's |
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what **FAR** easier. I GPT partition everything now, including my USB |
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thumbdrives if I partition them at all!) |
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When that machine slowly died and I transferred to a new half-TB drive |
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thinking it was the aging 300-gigs (it wasn't, caps were dying on the by |
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then 8 year old mobo), and then transferred that into my new machine |
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without raid, I did the usual working/backup partition arrangement, but |
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got frustrated without the ability to have a backup /boot, because with |
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just one device, the boot sector could point just one place, at the core |
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grub2 in the dedicated BIOS boot partition, which in turn pointed at the |
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usual /boot. Now grub2's better in this regard than grub2, since that |
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core grub2 has an emergency mode that would give me limited ability to |
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load a backup /boot, that's an entirely manual process with a |
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comparatively limited grub2 emergency shell without additional modules |
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available, and I didn't actually take advantage of that to configure a |
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backup /boot that it could reach. |
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But when I switched to the SSDs, I again had multiple devices, the pair |
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of SSDs, which I setup with individual /boots, and the original one still |
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on the spinning rust. Again I installed grub2 to each one, pointed at |
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its own separately configured /boot, so now I actually have three |
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separately configured and bootable /boots, one on each of the SSDs and a |
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third on the spinning rust half-TB. |
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(FWIW the four old 300-gigs are sitting on the shelf. I need to badblocks |
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or dd them to wipe, and I have a friend that'll buy them off me.) |
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Third point. /boot partition raid1 across all five drives and three are |
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wasted? How? I believe if you check, all five will have a mirror of the |
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data (not just two unless it's btrfs raid1 not mdadm raid1, but btrfs is / |
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entirely/ different in that regard). Either they're all wasted but one, |
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or none are wasted, depending on how you look at it. |
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Meanwhile, do look into installing grub on each drive, so you can boot |
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from any of them. I definitely know it's possible as that's what I've |
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been doing, tested, for quite some time. |
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> Oh, as far as raid on partitions goes - I do use this for a different |
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> purpose. If you have a collection of drives of different sizes it can |
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> reduce space waste. Suppose you have 3 500GB drives and 2 1TB drives. |
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> If you put them all directly in a raid5 you get 2TB of space. If you |
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> chop the 1TB drives into 2 500GB partitions then you can get two raid5s |
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> - one 2TB in space, and the other 500GB in space. That is 500GB more |
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> data for the same space. Oh, and I realize I wrote raid5. With mdadm |
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> you can set up a 2-drive raid5. It is functionally equivalent to a |
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> raid1 I think, |
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You better check. Unless I'm misinformed, which I could be as I've not |
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looked at this in awhile and both mdadm and the kernel have changed quite |
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a bit since then, that'll be setup as a degraded raid5, which means if |
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you lose one... |
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But I do know raid10 can be setup like that, on fewer drives than it'd |
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normally take, with the mirrors in "far" mode I believe, and it just |
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arranges the stripes as it needs to. It's quite possible that they fixed |
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it so raid5 works similarly and can do the same thing now, in which case |
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that degraded thing I knew about is obsolete. But unless you know for |
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sure, please do check. |
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> and I believe you can convert between them, but since I generally intend |
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> to expand arrays I prefer to just set them up as raid5 from the start. |
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> Since I stick lvm on top I don't care if the space is chopped up. |
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There's a lot of raid conversion ability in modern mdadm. I think most |
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levels can be converted between, given sufficient devices. Again, a lot |
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has changed in that regard since I set my originals up, I'd guess |
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somewhere around 2008. |
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-- |
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Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
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"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
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and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |