[opensuse] CF cards for system installation and hard drive suspend
Hi! I'm building a new server for video storage (editing). Due size, power and financial limitations I'm thinking about server that has OpenSUSE installed on CF card and data installed on one 1.5Tb Seagate, which is rsynced to another. So, not mirrored by RAID, but rather "manually synced every night to provide 1 day backups". But I want the system to be running all the time but at the same time consume as little power as possible. Therefore I'm thinking about installing the system on 4Gb CF. So, now the questions: What should I know about installing the system partitions on a CF card? Should I put swap there also? If not, why not? Will the CF card wear down? Should I invest in faster CF cards? The system will probably have 2Gb memory. Also, does OpenSUSE 11.1 spin down the 1.5Tb data hard drives when they are not in use? Or can it be easily configured to do so? The previous system has RAID-5 with 500Gb disks and that RAID doesn't seem to spin down ever. I'm thinking of having the system and swap on the CF card so that if nobody is using the data in this server, the disks could spin down and the whole system should not consume much energy. I'm also investigating in using Intel Atom 330 for this server. Would there be any problems with that? Unfortunately though, it seems that is not yet possible with the motherboard available. -- HG. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
HG wrote:
What should I know about installing the system partitions on a CF card? Should I put swap there also? If not, why not? Will the CF card wear down? Should I invest in faster CF cards? The system will probably have 2Gb memory.
Why not invest in more memory and avoid swap altogether?
Also, does OpenSUSE 11.1 spin down the 1.5Tb data hard drives when they are not in use? Or can it be easily configured to do so?
It's easily configured with hdparm. I've got a backup-system with 2x1Tb in RAID1 which is only spun up for a maybe four hours every morning between 2 and 6. Experiment a bit with your hardware - my array is showing some instability when spinning up the drives, and I think I'll have to return/replace one or both. /Per -- /Per Jessen, Zürich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Hi! On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 11:01 AM, Per Jessen <per@opensuse.org> wrote:
HG wrote:
What should I know about installing the system partitions on a CF card? Should I put swap there also? If not, why not? Will the CF card wear down? Should I invest in faster CF cards? The system will probably have 2Gb memory.
Why not invest in more memory and avoid swap altogether?
Can't fit more. I'm thinking about going with Atom 330 (dual core) which is available only on one motherboard and it only supports 2Gb. However, I want to use real distro and not some special NAS distro.
Also, does OpenSUSE 11.1 spin down the 1.5Tb data hard drives when they are not in use? Or can it be easily configured to do so?
It's easily configured with hdparm. I've got a backup-system with 2x1Tb in RAID1 which is only spun up for a maybe four hours every morning between 2 and 6. Experiment a bit with your hardware - my array is showing some instability when spinning up the drives, and I think I'll have to return/replace one or both.
So, it is possible to do for RAID-arrays also? Didn't know that. My 9.2 didn't do that when I tried to enable it from YaST AFAIK. What kind of instability are you experiencing? Is it connected to RAID or other HW? I'm thinking about using the new Seagate 1.5Tb disks - although just a few days ago, I found out that they are not too good choices for RAID :-( So, therefore I'm thinking about rsyncing instead of RAID - that would create a one day backup at the same time :-) -- HG. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
HG wrote:
Also, does OpenSUSE 11.1 spin down the 1.5Tb data hard drives when they are not in use? Or can it be easily configured to do so?
It's easily configured with hdparm. I've got a backup-system with 2x1Tb in RAID1 which is only spun up for a maybe four hours every morning between 2 and 6. Experiment a bit with your hardware - my array is showing some instability when spinning up the drives, and I think I'll have to return/replace one or both.
So, it is possible to do for RAID-arrays also? Didn't know that.
Well, you don't do it for the array, you do it for the individual drives. On my backup system, I have both drives set to a standby timeout of 10minutes.
My 9.2 didn't do that when I tried to enable it from YaST AFAIK.
I don't know if it can be done from YaST.
What kind of instability are you experiencing? Is it connected to RAID or other HW?
At least one of the drives has problems waking up from standby. I have not yet investigated in any detail. /Per -- /Per Jessen, Zürich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
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