[Gluster-users] Fwd: New home user considering Gluster FS.

[Kaleb S. KEITHLEY]

On 10/21/2013 09:28 AM, Bob Hyatt wrote:
>
> Does the disks in a specific volume have to be the same size? I have
> some 1TB drives, a bunch of 2TB drives, and a few 3TB drives.

They don't have to be, but things can be easier to conceptualize if 
they're all the same. I'd be inclined to use LVM, e.g. to create as many 
3TB or 4TB LVM volumes from the drives you have.

>
> would I have to have 3 volumes? or can I add each disk into an existing
> volume? is there a logical limitation to how many disks should be in a
> volume?

You can grow gluster volumes by adding more bricks in a "distribute" 
volume. If you use LVM to assemble four LVM volumes of, say, 4TB; use 
them as bricks to create a single GlusterFS 2×2 distribute+replicate 
volume for a total of 8TB replicated storage.

>
> I am NOT looking to do any sort of RAID, I don't feel they are
> necessary, as I think GlusterFS does all I need in the safety regard. Is
> GlusterFS the equivalent of Raid6? or better?

Gluster's replicate volume is analogous to RAID 1 mirror. At this time 
that's the only RAID-like functionality that GlusterFS has. (N.B. lots 
of people like to think of GlusterFS's stripe volume as RAID 0, but 
that's a bad assumption.)

>
> It looks like GlusterFS is intended for corporations, and what I want is
> simpler than such organizations require. Yet the volume of data I have
> is too much for simple file systems.

GlusterFS is Open Source. Nothing says that home users and hobbyists 
like you can't use it if it suits your purpose.


-- 

Kaleb