So, maybe the bold question to ask would be: what would be the best RAID
config for 3 HDDS and a max 6 node HPC cluster? Should I just use RAID 1
do you mean for each node?
for the system partitions on one disk, and RAID 0 for the simulation
data placed on the same partitions on other two disks: after
post-processing, the data is gone anyway... and with a good backup
strategy, I don't have to worry about RAID0 not recovering from a disk
fail...
you're going to back up a raid0?
in any case, I think you should consider net-booting and using the node
disks as a 3x raid0. if the local files are really transient, then
your startup script can just reinitialize the local disks every boot.
(which would leave you with a working node even after a disk failure or two!)
that's assuming you need or can benefit from the capacity or bandwidth.
or better yet, don't bother booting of the local disk. simply make your
head/admin/master server reliable and net-boot. it's likley that nodes
won't be functional without the master server anyway, and net-booting
doesn't mean you can't use the local disk for swap/scratch/...
Well, I want to configure the net boot for all diskless nodes and use
the master node and it's RAID for a performance gains with writing CFD
simulation data against network communication and to be able to scale
more easily.
I'm not sure I parse that. net booting is orthogonal to whether or not
you store data locally or over the net. but yes, gigabit is somewhat
slower than a single modern disk, so local IO will win.
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