[Beowulf] Big storage

[Joe Landman]

Bruce Allen wrote:
> Hi Loic,
> 
>> [...]
>>>
>>> In a system with 24 x 500 GB disks, I would like to have usable
>>> storage of
>>> 20 x 500 GB and use the remaining disks for redundancy. What do you
>>> recommend?  If I understand correctly I can't boot from ZFS so one or
>>> more
>>> of the remaining 4 disks might be needed for the OS.
>>>
>> This is (in my opinion) probably the only real issue with the X4500.
>> The system disk(s) must be with the data disks (since there are "only"
>> 48 disks slots) and the two bootable disks are on the same controller
>> which effectively make this controller a single point of failure (there
>> are easy ways to move the second system disk to another controller, but
>> you still need a working "first" controller to boot).
> 
> Can you boot from a USB device?  You can have an inexpensive RAID-1 USB
> device for the root and OS.

FWIW:  Other solutions can boot from USB, Flash, ... and provide the 48
drive capability.


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Joseph Landman, Ph.D
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