<p>I can understand the benefit of putting the SWAP file on a seperate drive or array, but it seems like such a waste to give up a 320GB drive or two of them in the RAID1/mirrored for OS/root and SWAP. Between the / and SWAP I only need about 30GB max. That leaves 290GB (or 610GB with 2 drives) of space wasted. The server can only physically support 4 drives because it's only got 4 drive bays and using an external array or fibre channel is out of the question for this server.<br>
</p><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 2:40 PM, matti <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mathew_2000@yahoo.com">mathew_2000@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<br>
<br>
Hi,<br>
<br>
Yes, try to avoid using the RAID 5 for the root/OS,<br>
ideally, and I know this isn't possible often<br>
enough, I would have the root partition as<br>
a RAID 1<br>
<br>
I also like Matt's recommendation of<br>
then breaking the RAID 1 and using<br>
the off lined mirrored drive as<br>
a hot spare/backup.<br>
<br>
likewise, the SWAP area SHOULD NOT be<br>
in the RAID 5... this you will find will<br>
end up killing performance once things<br>
hit swap. IF you are forced to do it,<br>
then make certain you have LOTs of RAM,<br>
and carefully monitor the system because<br>
once it starts to use the swap space<br>
you will be in trouble (performance wise)<br>
<br>
I would try to do this with the phyiscal<br>
drives:<br>
<br>
[ drive 1 ][drive 2] = RAID 1/mirrored for OS/root<br>
<br>
[ drive 3 ] = swap<br>
<br>
[ drive 4 ][ drive 5 ][ drive 6 ] = RAID 5/data<br>
<br>
this setup should result in the best performance<br>
typically...<br>
<br>
hmmm... I guess people typically don't use an<br>
entire drive for swap anymore.. so I would put<br>
that part on the RAID 1 drives and max the RAM<br>
on the system. (and hopefully it would hardly ever<br>
use swap.. )<br>
<br>
best<br>
<font color="#888888">matti<br>
</font><div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
> I usually create a RAID1 for my<br>
> boot partition, then take one of<br>
> the drives offline. That way you can bring it back<br>
> online to sync after<br>
> an OS update and have a ‘hot spare’ laying<br>
> around if the server OS<br>
> gets compromised or corrupted.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br>