flmaxey:
Sorry...please read your quote...seemed to have added my info there....;)
Alles anzeigenRegarding: "OMV on 7 computers being used for storage": (Are these repurposed consumer PC's?)
This is the crux of the matter. I imagine that these boxes are the source/destination of all your client clone copies. Based on an earlier post, I'm guessing that the clone copies are organized alphabetically..??
Here are a few questions for you:
1. What is the total of your storage requirement, presently?
3. What is the data to be stored, primarily? (Factory default drive clones? Rough size of each?)
4. How many storage drives are in each OMV server?
5. What file system are you using?
6. Memory in the OMV boxes?
(While I don't know the parameters, or their reasons for suggesting it, ZFS pro's suggest 1GB RAM per TB of storage but that's in a file server / server farm application. (Which equates to a LOT of traffic with concurrent users.)
Without "file deduplication", the ZFS on Linux project recommends a minimum of 2GB. (See Hardware) In your scenario, with OMV, I think you'll be fine with 4GB ram. OMV will work with 1GB (on Raspberry PI's and other SMB's) In your scenario, that would leave the remaining 3GB for ZFS.
Finally, how critical do you see this data to be? Meaning, if you lost some or all of it, what would be the consequence? (I imagine there may be "classes" involved. ?TB is critical, where ?TB is important, but not critical.)
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Hi again!
Wow you really have a two penneth worth of info here.....
After reading everything and what others have said I probably don't need a raid scenario on my Work Server. I just need a way to pool the drives so that what I save on them is saved alphabetically...ie I don't need to move them around when one letter has more images than another....
BTW I do clone all my computers....and have backups of those clones....;)
Because I am a one man band as it goes....;) I utilise everything I can in the way of drives and storage space...If a customer decides to go from a work station to a laptop and doesn't want to do anything with the old computer I then use it (if it is worth having ) as a storage vessel..
I will add that if I reuse such a computer I check the motherboard for components that look like they are swelling....;) I redo the thermal paste which I usually replace on all computers after a couple of years... I even replace the processor cooling system if I have somthing available...
I am good at what I do building computers and repairing them...but my real expertise area is problem solving....
I am always honest with my customers and say that if I don't have the particular solution to their problem I will find it....(if at all possible...and most of the usual problems I already aware of how to solve them)
No one person can be good at everything....
I hate seeing customers with purpose computers for sale and have the nerve to call them games computers....just had a new guy on the block claiming he sells games computers and then proceeds to use a Corsair CX450 as a power source.....I even see compromises from known brands...Not condemning Corsair....but never use a budget PSU in a games computer....
Those that know me know that a games computer is something worth building well and not something one should compromise on....if you have a small budget...then no games computer....;)
Your questions:
1. I have 8TB in a 4 x 2TB software raid 5 and that space is on its limit....I was hoping to do a big jump in size so that I can concentrate (albeit disk failures) on other things...
I have just bought 5 x 4 TB WD Red (not all from the same place) for my work server....I recently upgraded my VMWare from 1TB to 2TB so that is OK at the moment...
The computer that I back my clonezilla images on is a purpose built computer by me.... I have a tendency to move computers when building new ones..the computer I am sitting at at the moment is my company one and is my latest build with good components....my clonezilla image backup computer is an old company one....;)
2. When I buy in a new computer...most often nowadays a laptop that my customer has chosen....I start it set it up for them and install their software, Microsoft Office...if they have one....setup a web mail client... antivirus protection etc and then create a purpose image of that computer...Now it depends on the computer..if it has a SSD or standard drive around 256 GB - then I do a complete image with recovery partitions (if available)...but on larger drives I just save parts so that I can restore their computers....the images vary in size up to about 37GB...so ZFS compression would save me space...I will add that my customers sign an agreement to the effect that I tell them what I have saved.... I also store syspreped wims etc on the clonezilla backup server...
I always have up to date versions of an OS so that if a computer comes in with just so much bluff software in use (customers have downloaded by mistake) and I can see that there is several different proplems then I usually recommend a restore....I used to restore to factory defaults but more ofthen than not it is just a waste of time so I restore to their OS and activate their license....
3. The amount of drives in each OMV server varies on what I have.... but most have at least 3 to 4 TB and are sometimes a backup of a backup.....The clonezilla server backup computer I am upgrading with extra 3TB drives....I have 3x3TB at the moment and have two more available...
4. All my computers apart from my Windows ones are using ext4..
5. The memory in the OMV computers is all standard..sorry some have memory with heatsinks...I never build even a standard computer with memory without heatsinks....All have at least 4GB but several are using DDR2 6400. I would not be using dedup....
If I lose a customer clone it means I have to start from scratch...but like I said I usually have updated wims of all OS from XP to Windows 10...so the clones save me time....but not the end of the world crisis....
At the moment I am using the web user interface for my OMV computers and have everything saved as favourites in Firefox, Chrome, IE....I also use puttey. Puttey is setup for all my computers and I can quickly access them via my company computer...
Really, as it seems from the thread, your considerations may to be more about data organization than anything else. Of course getting the right storage structure would help, and go a long way toward preventing a potential disaster.
Data organisation is easier if you have drives pooled as one otherwise you have to allocate one drive for a - f another for g - k etc but the risk is you will always have more of one letter than another.....so pooling drives saves this problem....Another thing is maybe a - f has 20GB left but the image you want to save is 35GB....;)
tkaiser has opened my eyes to the need to restructure and ext 4 doesn't give the advantages of ZFS....
As you can imagine this undertaking is going to take time and I don't want to have to redo things for a while....I always have a new backup of my system drives on all computers if I have upgraded the OD....so I can reset in case of problems.....
I am better at maintaining my hardware than software....files and need to improve on that.....BUT that doesn't mean I haven't got backups of all important files....
bookie56