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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    16

    Partitioning The 1.2Tb Bad Boy!

    Specs:
    Dual Xeon 3.2ghz
    4Gb Ram ECC Reg.
    Intel Mobo
    Intel Server Chasis
    6x 300Gb Raid5 on 3Ware 9000 series controller, Hot Swap
    Fedora Core 3
    cPanel

    This bad boy is so loud!! LOL

    This is my first true hardware raid server.

    Before I go ahead and get this puppy ready, I'd like your opinion on how I should arrange the partitions.
    Basically, what I am afraid of is since the /home and /var paritions will be HUGE, in the case of a reboot and a forced FSCK, the machine would be down for hours ...
    How should I parition my HD space to avoid 7hour fsck's .... even better, since I am running raid, is there a possibility that I will never have to do an fsck?

    Also, for the ones who are wondering, if you are looking for a hardware raid controller that works with Linux, 3ware is the way to go. Adaptec has some kick *** cards but no support for Fedora. Some distro's are supported though. 3ware was a plug'n play deal for me, the driver was detected uppon install.

    Thanks guys!

    Dan P.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    50
    wow. thats a serious bit of kit there
    how much did that bad boy cost?? or is it leased from a hosting company ??

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Location
    Montreal, Quebec
    Posts
    589
    Use Reiserfs

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    16

    :p

    the cost for the puppy was around 6000$ canadian

    thanks for the input!

    Dan

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Posts
    469
    Quote Originally Posted by WestGat
    in the case of a reboot and a forced FSCK, the machine would be down for hours.
    This is something I'm glad you considered =). Alot of times it's overlooked.

    What I normally do is install a small RAID-1 mirror for the OS. The large array which I assume you'll use for data storage could then be FSCK'd while the machine is running during pre-determined "service" windows. Just be sure to disable the auto/forced FSCK during boot, at least for the large array... I believe you can do this in FSTAB.

    Also, divide it up in to several partitions, so they can be FSCK'd individually without taking all of your services down.
    bye

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    178
    What is the server actually going to be used for? That is going to be important in determining how to partition things...
    Robert Donaldson | Netivex
    Toronto | Dedicated Servers

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    European Union
    Posts
    391
    just out of curiosity what model drives did you buy? I just bought a couple Maxtor Maxline III's for my desktop 300GB each & one failed already. Reallocating sectors, reallocating, click, click click click. I'm very dissatisfied with them & probably will try to exchange them for the Seagate NL series,
    EuroVPS - Europe's Fully Managed Hosting
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  8. #8
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    537
    maxtor drives aint great imo - i had a old 80gb diamondmax9+ ide maxtor and its wiped its own firmware (very common fault one those drives)

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    16
    This server will be used as a hosting/database server for a major site (something like paypal).
    I purchased 6 seagate baracuda's 300Gb Sata drives.
    I moved away from Maxtor ... seems more and more people are having problems with them.

    Dan

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    mexico
    Posts
    1
    i also stopped using maxtor long time ago. drives kept failing me

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    16
    Here is how I paritionned my drive:

    swap - 8gb
    /boot - 400mb ext3
    / - 3gb ext3
    /tmp -10gb reiserfs
    /usr -25gb reiserfs
    /var -355gb reiserfs
    /home -355gb reiserfs
    /backup -355gb reiserfs

    I went for ext3 for / and /boot since reiserfs is still considered "experimental" and I wouldnt want any trouble on those partitions

    Any ideas ? I can still start over if someone knows better.
    ANY input is appreciated.

    Thanks.
    Dan

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Manchester, UK
    Posts
    779
    Quote Originally Posted by nutzer
    i also stopped using maxtor long time ago. drives kept failing me
    I'll second that. Bought 3 maxtor drives at one point, only one of them is still going. I seem to remember the main problem with the DiamondMax drives at least is a problem with the bearings in the platter motor causing vibrations that damage the drive.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    50
    Sheesh....

    Im seeing a pattern emerge here!!
    My Maxtor 200 gig starting making that awful grinding as they do when the bearings in the platter have gone......

    i had it all backed up of course but I would never go Maxtor again...Veeeeryy unreliable compared to some other brands

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    995
    I would stay far away from ReiserFS if I were you. I've seen it eat itself on regular occasions, usually resulting in a lot of data loss.

    Just my $0.02.

    Best,
    Sam
    Sam Machiz / Director, Product Development / Ubersmith
    smachiz[at]ubersmith.com / [direct] 212-812-4194

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Atlanta, GA
    Posts
    5,662
    you would be best using XFS and setting the drives in 0+1 for maximum performance.

    you would have been better off if you got 4 Raptor 10k's in 0+1 for your database since this is going to be a "huge" site.

    then run the rest of the system off of a 1 mirror.

    although the 3wares have decent r-5 performance, it's still R-5 and not well suited for being used on a busy db server.

  16. #16
    6000 CD. thats about 4000 euro's

    Man you got screwed Your system value is like 2399 euros maxxed out
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  17. #17
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    16
    Hehe

    Acutally its more like 4200 euro...

    The intel case and redudant power supplies are worth almost 1000$ alone.
    where do you get those incredible prices?! I want your supplier. lol

    At that price, I could ship from europe and get a better deal.

    I forgot to mention I had a 3 year full waranty with 24hour turnover on defect parts. That was around a grand extra. Sorry for the bad info.


    Does anybody else have opinions on what filesystem I should be using here?


    Dan

  18. #18
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Location
    Montreal, Quebec
    Posts
    589
    Quote Originally Posted by SMachiz
    I would stay far away from ReiserFS if I were you. I've seen it eat itself on regular occasions, usually resulting in a lot of data loss.

    Just my $0.02.

    Best,
    Sam
    At a large aeronautics corporation were I do some work (300+ servers), we are using reiserfs on all our SuSE Linux Enterprise servers without any problems (hardware failure aside).

    Some of those servers are mission critical.

  19. #19
    We have quite a few servers with ReiserFS, I have also read the horror stories, but we have not had any problems with the filesystem. The performance does seem better than ext3.

  20. #20
    i can substitute on that part. Running reiserFS from "beta" so to speak.... works great and i had only one big flaw in all the time. And that flaw was hardware based (io manipulation thanx to my 8006-lp2 )
    TwiLight INC - Our products: (managed) Colocation, Dedicated servers, RTO, Transit
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  21. #21
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    16

    sweetness!

    thanks guys! I guess we will ger her a try with RiserFS. Damn that server is fast. too around 5minutes to install FC3 ... cant wait to see how fast it installs cPanel.

    Dan

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Atlanta, GA
    Posts
    5,662
    Quote Originally Posted by WestGat
    thanks guys! I guess we will ger her a try with RiserFS. Damn that server is fast. too around 5minutes to install FC3 ... cant wait to see how fast it installs cPanel.

    Dan

    that is entirely dependent upon which mirrors most of it pulls from

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