Re: Prepping to install

[David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost>]

On 11 May 2015 at 23:46, William A. Mahaffey III <wam%hiwaay.net@localhost> wrote:
>
>
> Howdy, list :-). A (another ?) noob here. I am preparing to install NetBSD
> 6.1.5 on a new server, AMD C32 based, 4256EE CPU, Supermicro H8SCM mbd, 6 X
> 1 TB 2.5" HDD's, to be partitioned/RAIDed (software). Firstly, is this the
> correct list to post what could be a blizzard of noob-ish install questions
> ? If not, where, please ? Either way, I downloaded both of the 6.1.5 boot
> ISO's. The online docs mention installing from a CD or floppy, but no
> mention of a USB stick network install, my preference. Is this in fact
> feasible ? If so, is it documented anywhere ? Does the installer provide for
> possibly complex partitioning during install via shell access or something
> similar ? For reference, I am writing this on a FreeBSD 9.3Rp13 box, setup
> (last summer) similarly to what I want to do w/ this NetBSD server. This box
> has 4 X 1 TB 2.5" HDD's, partitioned into /boot, swap, /, /usr, & /home,
> with /usr & /home RAID0-ed. The installer had a point where you could pop
> into a shell & execute shell commands (or script) to complete the
> partitioning w/o any fat-fingering of delicate, tedious, repetitive
> commands. I am planning on /boot, swap, /, /usr, /var, & /home for the
> server (5 slices per drive, with / RAID1-ed from 2 partitions, /usr RAID1-ed
> from the other 4 of that size, /boot RAID1-ed from 6 slices, 1 per drive, &
> /home & /var RAID5-ed from 6 slices, 1 per drive). Thanks in advance for any
> & all input.

If you are using RAID5 I would strongly recommend keeping to
"power-of-two + 1" components, to keep the stripe size as a nice power
of two, otherwise performance is... significantly impaired.

 If you do not need to maximise the space you will always get better
performance from RAID1 (or RAID10). For that I would RAID1 the disks
in pairs, then RAID0 two of them to give a 1TB and fast 2TB storage
units, which would them be partitioned up as needed. It also makes it
simpler to later replace the pair or the four disks while leaving the
other set.

As long as you are below the 2TB limit for any given component you can
use disklabels which are much simpler than gpt with wedges. NetBSD is
moving more to wedges, but netbsd-6 is probably not the version to do
it on by choice :) On that note I would probably put a netbsd-7 BETA
on the box and just update when the full release comes out.

If you want to maximise space with some redundancy then as you say,
RAID5 is the way to go for the bulk of the storage.

A while back I setup a machine with 5 * 2TB disks with netbsd-6, with
small RAID1 partitions for root and the bulk as RAID5
http://abs0d.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/setting-up-8tb-netbsd-file-server.html
(wow, was that really four years ago) - in your position I might keep
one 1TB as a scratch/build space and then RAID up the rest.

If you have time definitely experiment, get a feel for the different
performance available from the different options.