Damon, I haven't even approached the file system level yet. The application is a basic fileserver which will host our professor's mechanical engineering images. These images can be anywhere from 20MB to 300MB so I would consider them "normal files".
I am hoping some hardware people can chime in about the RAID configuration first. I have plenty of RAM on the server (12GB), and a fast RAID controller so I would like to get this going first then I will worry about the file system. Unless, people feel this is a holistic approach. Any thoughts? On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 9:59 AM, Damon L. Chesser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sat, 2008-06-07 at 08:27 -0400, Mag Gam wrote: > > > > I have a RAID controller with 256MB of on board cache and its > > connected to 12 500GB SATA disks. I am planning to create 2 RAID > > groups (6 disks each), but I don't know what is the optimal stripe > > size should be. > > Are you going to use the RAID controller to make the raid (ie, they will > be hardware raid and the machine and the OS will not know of it)? If > so, I would go with the controller defaults with out overriding reasons > to change them. One such reason I can think of is an application such > as oracle which has very detailed instructions on what kind of > strip/raid you need for a particular use. > > > > Also, once I stripe on the RAID controller I am planning to use LVM. > > Is striping a good idea? > This, I don't know. > > What should I consider for the filesystem? > > Again, it depends on your use. Lots of real big files, you might want > something besides ext3. Lots of little or just "normal" files, ext3 > should work just fine for you. There are some file system "experts" on > this list that can fill in the details. As a disclaimer, I have only > used ext3 and have never had to use anything different. But again, your > "Killer app" might have very specific requirements (again, oracle is > very specific in it's recommendations and I assume any good app will > tell you the optimum set up for it's self) however here are some things > to read to fill in the time for you :) > http://fsbench.netnation.com/ <--Performance comparison: Linux > filesystems. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems > > http://linuxreviews.org/sysadmin/filesystems > > http://www.linfo.org/filesystem.html > > No matter what FS you choose, I would NOT deviate from having a /boot in > ext3. The filesystem has very good recovery tools and is well > documented. I might also not use anything but ext3 for the / as well > and put /kill_app on the optimal type of fs for it's self. If XFS is > the best for your app, having /boot and / in ext3 will not affect the > app. This might be a prejudice I have since I am very comfortable > working in ext3 and not so in say, Reisers, especially in file recovery > operations or resizing. > > HTH > -- > Damon L. Chesser > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.linkedin.com/in/dchesser >
