[Gluster-users] Moving external storage between bricks

[Burnash, James]

Hello.

So, here's my problem.

I have 4 storage servers that will be configured as replicate + distribute, each of which has two external storage arrays, each with their own controller. Those external arrays will be used to store archived large (10GB) files that will only be read-only after their initial copy to the glusterfs storage.

Currently, the external arrays are the items of interest. What I'd like to do is this:

- Create multiple hardware RAID 5 arrays on each storage server, which would present to the OS as approx 8 16TB physical drives.
- Create an ext3 file system on each of those devices (I'm using CentOS 5.5. so ext4 is still not really an option for me)
- Mount those multiple file systems to the storage server, and then aggregate them all under gluster to export under a single namespace to NFS and the Gluster client.

How do I aggregate those multiple file systems without involving LVM in some way.

I've read that Glusterfs likes "small" bricks, though I haven't really been able to track down why. Any pointers to good technical info on this subject would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

James Burnash, Unix Engineering


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