Thanks to Bruce Hines bruce.Hines_at_mci.com
Andrew Busch a.busch_at_qut.edu.au
Ramond Browder Ramond.Browder_at_digital.com
Dejan Muhamedagic dejan_at_yunix.co.yo
This controller does indeed support booting for DUNIX.
Now, I'll develop my strategy for the migration.
Their responses follow.
Yes, DU should support booting from it. I know I did it on a DU 4.0D
and a KZPSC with a couple of mirrored rz28. There's one thing you
should bear in mind when creating a disklabel for a boot group, say re0:
# cd /mdec; disklabel -wr -t advfs re0 SWXCR reboot.advfs bootre.advfs
i.e. you have to specify both boot images. At least that was the only
way I persuaded the controller to cooperate. Read disklabel(8) for
further details.
I'm not sure if I understood your last question about "failing primary
boot". Both disks in the group are identical copies of each other and,
should one of them fail, the other will keep running.
Regards,
Dejan Muhamedagic dejan_at_yunix.co.yu
Yes, the 230 supports both RAID-1(mirroring) and RAID-5. The
230 presents to the host a logical volume (could be RAID-1 and/or
RAID-5), so if a disk crashes such as system disk, only the controller
determines, the system continues as if nothing has happened. You would
continue to boot the same. The 230 creates logical volumes (disks)
called re0, re1, ... based on how you configure.
Bruce Hines
In short, yes, yes, yes. The KZPAC controller presents it's own devices
to the OS (re0, re1, instead of rz0, rz1, etc..) and as long as one of
your disks in the mirrorset is working, the failure is completely
transparent to the system. There are also utilities that let you know
when a disk fails, so you can replace it hot, with no system downtime.
It will rebuild itself automatically. The only trouble I can see you
having is actually getting the data from your existing disks to the new
mirror and raid sets. Probably a good idea to
a) backup the entire thing
b) create the raid and mirror sets
c) boot from another system disk and restore the tape to the new
sets.
Be warned though - we've had a few problems with file ownerships when
using dump and restore. Good idea to check them after you're done ;)
Obviously, if you have enough disks, it's better to just do a straight
disk-disk dump/restore, and keep the old ones for backup.
| Andrew Busch | a.busch_at_qut.edu.au
DU4.0x will run fine on a RAID set provided by the KZPAC.
I have a customer that used mirroring for the system disk. I can't
remember what RAID they used for their data.
I have had customers that used the PCI RAID adapters and created one big
RAID5 set and put DU and their data on that disk.
It should be fine.
Regards,
Ray
-----Original Message-----
Managers,
I have an Alphaserver 2100 running DU 4.0A with an rz28 system disk, and
rz28 & rz29 data disks, JBOD.
It has been requested that I mirror the Operating System Disk as well as
migrate the data disks to RAID 5.
Can I do this with a KXPAC-CA Array 230/Plus Controller? Does this
controller support boot disks under DU4.0? Would the mirror disk
support booting from it if the Primary Boot disk were to fail?
I would appreciate feedback from anyone who has performed this task.
TIA,
Kevin Erickson
Kevine_at_ncrinc.com
Received on Wed Oct 07 1998 - 17:29:43 NZDT