My fileserver is running freebsd zfs. Basically one machine for nfs, venti, cifs, timemachine + sundry other services. This has worked well since 2005. Initially I used h/w raid under zfs. This was a mistake, forcibly corrected when my machine died. Now I use raidz. Since then I have replaced disks with much bigger disks without taking the machine down, upgraded the os & zpool/zfs versions a couple of times (could've done without them but I prefer to run the latest stable release). Except for these events it has required hardly any maintenance (just checking vital signs like fan speed, any disk errors in weekly zpool scrub etc). One issue is FreeBSD install still doesn't install on zfs. But you can run a minimal root off a USB disk and manually setup zfs (which is pretty easy). I should probably run an AOE server on it as well! When I next replace this machine I will see if I can create a USB disk image.
On Dec 30, 2011, at 12:35 PM, Aram Hăvărneanu <ara...@mgk.ro> wrote: >> aoe doesn't require solaris, or any other operating system. >> you can use it directly with a plan 9 file server, as i do. > > Of course AoE doesn't require much, my comment was in the context of > Coraid's hardware appliance. > > I don't have much use for AoE at home. At one point I used it to > network boot machines, but I only have laptops now, which have local > disks because I need to use them disconnected from the network > sometimes. > > I need a higher level protocol like 9p or venti, and I'd rather have a > single Plan 9 machine with direct attached disks serving everything > than a Plan 9 front end serving 9p and another machine providing AoE > to it. I have way, way to many machines. Yesterday I've thrown away > 5. I need less machines, not more :-). > > Does the Coraid applience implement RAID in hardware or does it use > fs(3) or another software solution? > > -- > Aram Hăvărneanu >
