On 1/26/22 12:42, dmitri maziuk wrote:
On 2022-01-26 11:06 AM, Peter Milesson via Bacula-users wrote:
...
Your way of explaining the reasoning of why to use smaller file
volumes, is very appreciated.
...
The only thing I haven't found out is how to preallocate the number
of volumes needed. Maybe there is no need, if the volumes are created
automagically. Most of the RAID array will be used by Bacula, just
leaving a couple of percent as free space.
If you use actual disks as "magazines" with vchanger, you need to
pre-label the volumes. If you use just one big filesystem, you can let
bacula do it for you (last I looked that functionality didn't work w/
autochangers).
Automatic labeling doesn't work, but vchanger supports barcodes like a
tape autochanger. The virtual barcodes are just the filenames of the
volume files on the disk "magazine". So the 'label barcodes' command
works with vchanger the same as a tape autochanger. The vchanger
'createvols' command both creates the volume files and then invokes
bconsole and issues the label barcodes command. A single command creates
and labels the volume files, so it is not so bad.
If you use disk "magazines" you also need to consider the whole-disk
failure. If you use one big filesystem, use RAID (of course) to guard
against those. But then you should look at the number of file volumes:
some filesystems handle large numbers of directory entries better than
others and you may want to balance the volume file size vs the number
of directory entries.
That is true if physical disks are used as magazines. Vchanger mostly
targets removable drives, such as USB, RDX, or hot-swap SAS JBOD. In
that case, exposure to whole-disk failure is mitigated by having
multiple backups and using Copy jobs.
But it is also possible to use vchanger with iSCSI volumes as magazines.
I use iSCSI for some magazines and portable USB drives for other
magazines that are used for offline and off-site storage. The iSCSI
volumes are on RAID10/LVM, but they could easily be ZFS volumes too.
For single filesystem, I suggest using ZFS instead of a traditional
RAID if you can: you can later grow it on-line by replacing disks w/
bigger ones when (not if) you need to.
Dima
_______________________________________________
Bacula-users mailing list
Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
_______________________________________________
Bacula-users mailing list
Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
