Linux Storage system: looking for advices Post: 302384126

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Special Forums Hardware Filesystems, Disks and Memory Linux Storage system: looking for advices Post 302384126 by Loic Domaigne on Monday 4th of January 2010 05:52:11 AM

01-04-2010

Registered User

Linux Storage system: looking for advices

Gidday!

I'd like to setup a storage server for a friend of mine (he is a hobby photographer, and he produces about 100Gb pictures monthly). My friend has the following PC-Server-like system:

AMD Athlon Dual Core Processor 4850e.
ASUS M3N78-EMH HDMI motherboard with 6 SATA connectors.
3Gb RAM.
6 SATA HD of different capacity (ranging from 1.2 - 2 Tb) and manufacturers.
1 Adaptec RAID Controller 1220SA able to create RAID 0, 1, JBOD array.

Currently, the SATA connectors are occupied as follow: 1 is used by the DVD writer, 4 by SATA HD and 1 is free. 2 SATA HDs are connected to the Adaptec RAID controller.

Using this system, we'd like to create a Linux based storage server. Basically,
the disk arrays should be used to hold the OS and the regular data (pictures). To face possible HD failures or unwanted deletions, some scripts shall backup periodically the important pictures to an external RAID-5 NAS.

The requirements for the storage solution are:

to get as much storage capacity as possible,
in case of a disk crash, it is acceptable to loose the data on the disk (the important data are backup on the NAS), BUT it is not acceptable to loose the entire storage.
the storage should be flexible, i.e. allow failed drives to be replaced or allow to replace HDs with bigger HDs if required.
the storage should be easy to use. Ideally, the 6 drives should be exposed as 1 virtual drive to outside.
the storage should accessible from a MacBook (using for instance, NFS). As a matter of fact, my friend work-out his picture from his MAC and the storage should be integrated as seamlessly as possible in the "MAC world".

I initially thought of creating a logical volume with LVM containing the 6 drives, set-up an ext3 file system than spans the whole volume and finally mount the volume to a well known location (e.g. /srv/data). I am afraid however that with this scheme, a single HD failure causes the entire storage to fail.

What would you recommend, given the above PC configuration and requirements for the storage? Buying additional Hardware (e.g. RAID controller) could eventually be an option.

Any ideas, pointers or links are welcome.

Thanks in advance,
Lo�c.

Loic Domaigne

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LEARN ABOUT FREEBSD

amr

AMR(4)							   BSD Kernel Interfaces Manual 						    AMR(4)

NAME

     amr -- MegaRAID SCSI/ATA/SATA RAID driver

SYNOPSIS

     To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your kernel configuration file:

	   device pci
	   device scbus
	   device amr

     Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following line in loader.conf(5):

	   amr_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION

     The amr driver provides support for LSI Logic MegaRAID SCSI, ATA and SATA RAID controllers and legacy American Megatrends MegaRAID SCSI RAID
     controllers, including models relabeled and sold by Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

     LSI MegaRAID SAS controllers are supported by mfi(4) and will not work with this driver.

HARDWARE

     Controllers supported by the amr driver include:

     o	 MegaRAID SATA 150-4
     o	 MegaRAID SATA 150-6
     o	 MegaRAID SATA 300-4X
     o	 MegaRAID SATA 300-8X
     o	 MegaRAID SCSI 320-1E
     o	 MegaRAID SCSI 320-2E
     o	 MegaRAID SCSI 320-4E
     o	 MegaRAID SCSI 320-0X
     o	 MegaRAID SCSI 320-2X
     o	 MegaRAID SCSI 320-4X
     o	 MegaRAID SCSI 320-0
     o	 MegaRAID SCSI 320-1
     o	 MegaRAID SCSI 320-2
     o	 MegaRAID SCSI 320-4
     o	 MegaRAID Series 418
     o	 MegaRAID i4 133 RAID
     o	 MegaRAID Elite 1500 (Series 467)
     o	 MegaRAID Elite 1600 (Series 493)
     o	 MegaRAID Elite 1650 (Series 4xx)
     o	 MegaRAID Enterprise 1200 (Series 428)
     o	 MegaRAID Enterprise 1300 (Series 434)
     o	 MegaRAID Enterprise 1400 (Series 438)
     o	 MegaRAID Enterprise 1500 (Series 467)
     o	 MegaRAID Enterprise 1600 (Series 471)
     o	 MegaRAID Express 100 (Series 466WS)
     o	 MegaRAID Express 200 (Series 466)
     o	 MegaRAID Express 300 (Series 490)
     o	 MegaRAID Express 500 (Series 475)
     o	 Dell PERC
     o	 Dell PERC 2/SC
     o	 Dell PERC 2/DC
     o	 Dell PERC 3/DCL
     o	 Dell PERC 3/QC
     o	 Dell PERC 4/DC
     o	 Dell PERC 4/IM
     o	 Dell PERC 4/SC
     o	 Dell PERC 4/Di
     o	 Dell PERC 4e/DC
     o	 Dell PERC 4e/Di
     o	 Dell PERC 4e/Si
     o	 Dell PERC 4ei
     o	 HP NetRAID-1/Si
     o	 HP NetRAID-3/Si (D4943A)
     o	 HP Embedded NetRAID
     o	 Intel RAID Controller SRCS16
     o	 Intel RAID Controller SRCU42X

DIAGNOSTICS

   Driver initialisation/shutdown phase
     amr%d: memory window not available
     amr%d: I/O window not available

     The PCI BIOS did not allocate resources necessary for the correct operation of the controller.  The driver cannot attach to this controller.

     amr%d: busmaster bit not set, enabling

     The PCI BIOS did not enable busmaster DMA, which is required for the correct operation of the controller.	The driver has enabled this bit
     and initialisation will proceed.

     amr%d: can't allocate register window
     amr%d: can't allocate interrupt
     amr%d: can't set up interrupt
     amr%d: can't allocate parent DMA tag
     amr%d: can't allocate buffer DMA tag
     amr%d: can't allocate scatter/gather DMA tag
     amr%d: can't allocate s/g table
     amr%d: can't allocate mailbox tag
     amr%d: can't allocate mailbox memory

     A resource allocation error occurred while initialising the driver; initialisation has failed and the driver will not attach to this con-
     troller.

     amr%d: can't obtain configuration data from controller
     amr%d: can't obtain product data from controller

     The driver was unable to obtain vital configuration data from the controller.  Initialisation has failed and the driver will not attach to
     this controller.

     amr%d: can't establish configuration hook
     amr%d: can't scan controller for drives

     The scan for logical drives managed by the controller failed.  No drives will be attached.

     amr%d: device_add_child failed
     amr%d: bus_generic_attach returned %d

     Creation of the logical drive instances failed; attachment of one or more logical drives may have been aborted.

     amr%d: flushing cache...

     The controller cache is being flushed prior to shutdown or detach.

   Operational diagnostics
     amr%d: I/O beyond end of unit (%u,%d > %u)

     A partitioning error or disk corruption has caused an I/O request beyond the end of the logical drive.  This may also occur if FlexRAID Vir-
     tual Sizing is enabled and an I/O operation is attempted on a portion of the virtual drive beyond the actual capacity available.

     amr%d: polled command timeout

     An initialisation command timed out.  The initialisation process may fail as a result.

     amr%d: bad slot %d completed

     The controller reported completion of a command that the driver did not issue.  This may result in data corruption, and suggests a hardware
     or firmware problem with the system or controller.

     amr%d: I/O error - %x

     An I/O error has occurred.

SEE ALSO

     cd(4), da(4), mfi(4), sa(4), scsi(4)

AUTHORS

     The amr driver was written by Mike Smith <msmith@FreeBSD.org>.

     This manual page was written by Mike Smith <msmith@FreeBSD.org> and Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven <asmodai@FreeBSD.org>.

BSD
								  March 29, 2006							       BSD