[PVE-User] Best way to RAID1 a Proxmox VE server?

[Theron T. Trout]

Hi Myke,

Ah, I see.  I agree with you on the installer.  It would be great if
future versions provide more guided storage configurations.  I've heard
rumor that PVE 2.0 may include some network-based filesystems, but I
digress.

Recently I've had to dig in pretty deep with LVM while customizing a new
Proxmox system.  It sounds like we had similar experience where the
installer asks which hdd to install to, but leaves the other unused,
yes?  The first time through I used LVM to extend the /var/lib/vz
partitions to include the second hard drive.  This site made that
process quite painless and fast.

http://lucaschan.com/weblog/2007/06/29/adding-a-physical-disk-to-lvm-in-redhatcentos/

Due to some requirements in how my new PVE server will be deployed and
utilized, I finally backed off that approach and shifted gears slightly.
 I settled on extending /var/lib/vz to use some of the space on the
second hard drive and the remainder I am using for nightly snapshot
backups.  It may be overkill but I left 10GB of free space on the LVM
volume group for temporary snapshot partitions during backup (compared
to the 4GB that the Proxmox installer sets aside).  Overall my ~500GB of
storage is split 60%/40% for data and backups, respectively.

I didn't explore any Linux software RAID options, so I can't offer much
on that, but I'd be very interested in finding out how well that plays
on a Proxmox VE system.  Still, I'm happy to share more details of what
I've done if it's helpful to you.

Best regards,
Theron



mykel at mWare.ca wrote:
> Hi Theron, thanks for the anecdote... I am certainly familiar with RAIDs
> and their characteristics, my problem is that I'm out of touch with
> Linux specifically - spent too much time in FreeBSD lately.
> 
> I'm moreso looking for a 'how-to' for mirroring the second drive in my
> PVE server... hopefully without any extended downtime or reloading of
> the OS being required.
> 
> Suggestion for the bare-metal installer - provide RAID1'ing as an
> option? I understand the LVM/PV jazz makes it possible to do this after
> the fact, but it'd sure be nice to have it from the get-go :)
> 
> Myke
> 
> 
> Theron T. Trout wrote:
>> Hi Myke,
>>
>> I setup a Proxmox VE server with 6 SCSI drivers in RAID 1+0 (stripped
>> and mirrored).  It was a total of 1.2TB and it was blazing fast.  We
>> configured a second, near identical, Proxmox machine and initially
>> didn't setup the same RAID configuration and it was considerably slower.
>>  The speed difference was most startling with Windows 2003 KVM clients,
>> particularly during boot.  The RAID 1+0 setup was a lot faster than the
>> other machine.  Unfortunately, I don't recall how it's RAID was
>> initially configured.
>>
>> Unfortunately, we were under some tight deadlines, so I wasn't able to
>> do any formal benchmarking before reconfiguring the slower machine.  If
>> I ever get a chance to I'll try to pull some hard numbers, but I doubt
>> I'll get to tear down one of the two machines any time soon.
>>
>> Hope that is helpful,
>> Theron
>>
>>   

-- 

Theron Trout
Principal, Mellonway LLC

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301-358-5050
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