On Nov 9, 2011, at 6:08 PM, Francois Dion wrote:
> Some laptops have pc card and expresscard slots, and you can get an adapter
> for sd card, so you could set up your os non mirrored and just set up home on
> a pair of sd cards. Something like
> http://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-SDAD109A11-Digital-Card-Express/dp/B000W3QLLW
>
> I've done this in the past, variations of this, including using a partition
> and a usb stick:
SDcard is suitable for boot *only* if it is connected via USB. While the
drivers I wrote for SDHCI work fine for using media, you can't boot off it
generally -- usually the laptop BIOS simply lacks the support needed to see
these.
It used to be that CompactFlash was a preferred option, but I think CF is
falling out of favor these days.
- Garrett
>
> http://solarisdesktop.blogspot.com/2007/02/stick-to-zfs-or-laptop-with-mirrored.html
> Wow, where did the time go, that was almost 5 years ago...
>
> Anyway, i pretty much ditched carrying the laptop, the current one i have is
> too heavy (m4400). But it does run really nicely sol11 and openindiana. The
> m4400 is set up with 2 drives, not mirrored. I'm tempted to put a sandforce
> based ssd for faster booting and better zfs perf for demos. Then i have an
> sdcard and expresscard adapter for sd. This gives me 16gb mirrored for my
> documents, which is plenty.
>
> Francois
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Nov 8, 2011, at 12:05 PM, Jim Klimov <jimkli...@cos.ru> wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I am thinking about a new laptop. I see that there are
>> a number of higher-performance models (incidenatlly, they
>> are also marketed as "gamer" ones) which offer two SATA
>> 2.5" bays and an SD flash card slot. Vendors usually
>> position the two-HDD bay part as either "get lots of
>> capacity with RAID0 over two HDDs, or get some capacity
>> and some performance by mixing one HDD with one SSD".
>> Some vendors go as far as suggesting a highest performance
>> with RAID0 over two SSDs.
>>
>> Now, if I were to use this for work with ZFS on an
>> OpenSolaris-descendant OS, and I like my data enough
>> to want it mirrored, but still I want an SSD performance
>> boost (i.e. to run VMs in real-time), I seem to have
>> a number of options:
>>
>> 1) Use a ZFS mirror of two SSDs
>> - seems too pricey
>> 2) Use a HDD with redundant data (copies=2 or mirroring
>> over two partitions), and an SSD for L2ARC (+maybe ZIL)
>> - possible unreliability if the only HDD breaks
>> 3) Use a ZFS mirror of two HDDs
>> - lowest performance
>> 4) Use a ZFS mirror of two HDDs and an SD card for L2ARC.
>> Perhaps add another "built-in flash card" with PCMCIA
>> adapters for CF, etc.
>>
>> Now, there is a couple of question points for me here.
>>
>> One was raised in my recent questions about CF ports in a
>> Thumper. The general reply was that even high-performance
>> CF cards are aimed for "linear" RW patterns and may be
>> slower than HDDs for random access needed as L2ARCs, so
>> flash cards may actually lower the system performance.
>> I wonder if the same is the case with SD cards, and/or
>> if anyone encountered (and can advise) some CF/SD cards
>> with good random access performance (better than HDD
>> random IOPS). Perhaps an extra IO path can be beneficial
>> even if random performances are on the same scale - HDDs
>> would have less work anyway and can perform better with
>> their other tasks?
>>
>> On another hand, how would current ZFS behave if someone
>> ejects an L2ARC device (flash card) and replaces it with
>> another unsuspecting card, i.e. one from a photo camera?
>> Would ZFS automatically replace the L2ARC device and
>> kill the photos, or would the cache be disabled with
>> no fatal implication for the pools nor for the other
>> card? Ultimately, when the ex-L2ARC card gets plugged
>> back in, would ZFS automagically attach it as the cache
>> device, or does this have to be done manually?
>>
>>
>> Second question regards single-HDD reliability: I can
>> do ZFS mirroring over two partitions/slices, or I can
>> configure "copies=2" for the datasets. Either way I
>> think I can get protection from bad blocks of whatever
>> nature, as long as the spindle spins. Can these two
>> methods be considered equivalent, or is one preferred
>> (and for what reason)?
>>
>>
>> Also, how do other list readers place and solve their
>> preferences with their OpenSolaris-based laptops? ;)
>>
>> Thanks,
>> //Jim Klimov
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> zfs-discuss mailing list
>> zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org
>> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
_______________________________________________
zfs-discuss mailing list
zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
