[Gluster-users] Rebalancing with no new bricks.

[Stephan von Krawczynski]

On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:04:30 -0400
Jeff Darcy <jdarcy at redhat.com> wrote:

> [...]
> that need to be moved, it shouldn't be too hard to combine this little
> bag of tricks into a solution that meets your needs.  Just let me know
> if you'd like me to assist.

The true question is indeed: why does he need "tricks" at all to come to
something obvious for humans: a way of distributing files over the glusterfs
so that "full" means really all bricks are full.
It cannot be the right way to design software (for humans) so that they have
to adapt to the software. Instead the software should be able to adapt to the
users' needs and situation. It is very obvious today that bricks can be of
different size.

In fact I always thought it would be a big advantage of glusterfs to be able
to use what's already there and make more out of it (just as linux did from
the first day on).
Which means for me:
1) It must be easy to deploy to an already filled fileserver => no need to
copy data over onto the "new" glusterfs (soft migration).
2) whatever layout the bricks are glusterfs must be able to follow the
obvious: if there is space left then use it.
3) The data must be left accessible even if glusterfs is not used on the
bricks any longer - without copying "back".

-- 
Regards,
Stephan