[Cialug] Writeup soon - ZFS SAN build

[Matt Breitbach]

The sparse provisioning does allow me to export the block device, which is
the general direction of this project.  I will be able to add additional
drives to fill up the block device when it becomes necessary, and not have
to repartition stuff in Windows.

The end goal of this unit will be as a massive storage system for all of our
virtual machines.  We are running Hyper-V 2.0, using Clustered Shared
Volumes.  This will allow me to have one huge Clustered Shared Volume, never
have to reformat it in Windows, and continually expand it while maintaining
fault tolerance.

I've got some other interesting ideas about how to set up future systems,
but that will be long after I get this system into prodution.



-----Original Message-----
From: cialug-bounces at cialug.org [mailto:cialug-bounces at cialug.org] On Behalf
Of Zachary Kotlarek
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 6:34 PM
To: Central Iowa Linux Users Group
Subject: Re: [Cialug] Writeup soon - ZFS SAN build


On Feb 16, 2010, at 5:29 PM, Matt Breitbach wrote:

> So my boss ordered me parts to start on an OpenSolaris ZFS SAN box.
> 
> The primary plan is to share it via iSCSI
> 
> The rest of the chassis will be populated with 2TB SATA drives in a RAID10
> style configuration (via ZFS).


What's the benefit of using RAID-Z in a RAID-1-like configuration if you
aren't using the related file system on top of it? Are you just doing it for
the checksuming?

Does sparse provisioning work when you're exporting a block device, or does
that only work with the filesystem? 

	Zach