Re: Geli and ZFS

2013-10-10 Thread Terje Elde 
On Oct 9, 2013, at 6:43 AM, yudi v  wrote:

> Generally, it's recommended to let ZFS manage the whole disk if possible,
> so I was wondering if the second option is better.
> I will be using couple of 3TB HDDs mirrored for data and want to encrypt
> them.

IIRC, there is/was a major performance-difference on Solaris between using ZFS 
on a partition, or a whole disk.  FreeBSD is happy with either.

The two alternatives you mentioned were:

ZFS over GELI over disk
and
ZFS over GELI over ZFS over disk

While ZFS wouldn't get the raw disk in setup #1, the left-most ZFS wouldn't get 
it in the second scenario either.

> I am hoping someone with an in-depth understanding of ZFS will be able to
> offer some insight.


What I usually do and recommend is using GPT with labels for the partitions 
you'll put GELI/ZFS on.

There's a couple of different reasons for this:

 * It'll let you create your zpool on /dev/gpt/label, which will make it easy 
to find even when the device moves (harddisk-renumbering, changes from internal 
ATA to USB enclosure… )

 * You don't run things through ZFS twice.

 * The disk is fully encrypted.

 * etc

Terje



signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail

Geli and ZFS

2013-10-08 Thread yudi v 
*
*
--
 There are few different ways to set-up geli with ZFS. I just want to get
some opinions (benefits and disadvantages) about the below two options


*First option*: (most commonly encountered set-up)

Have geli on the block device and ZFS on top of the geli provider.
*
Second option:*

Create a ZFS Volume on a block device, then create geli provider on top of
the ZFS volume, and finally, ZFS datasets on top.

Generally, it's recommended to let ZFS manage the whole disk if possible,
so I was wondering if the second option is better.
I will be using couple of 3TB HDDs mirrored for data and want to encrypt
them.

I am hoping someone with an in-depth understanding of ZFS will be able to
offer some insight.

-- 
Kind regards,
Yudi
___
[email protected] mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[email protected]"