GEOM

In FreeBSD, the GEOM framework permits access and control to classes, such as Master Boot Records and BSD labels, through the use of providers, or the disk devices in /dev. By supporting various software RAID configurations, GEOM transparently provides access to the operating system and operating system utilities. This chapter covers the use of disks under the GEOM framework in FreeBSD. This includes the major RAID control utilities which use the framework for configuration. This chapter is not a definitive guide to RAID configurations and only GEOM-supported RAID classifications are discussed. How to use the base utilities to configure, maintain, and manipulate the various RAID levels. How to mirror, stripe, encrypt, and remotely connect disk devices through GEOM. Know how to configure and install a new kernel (Configuring the FreeBSD Kernel ). Striping combines several disk drives into a single volume. Striping can be performed through the use of hardware RAID controllers. The GEOM disk subsystem provides software support for disk striping, also known as RAID0, without the need for a RAID disk controller. In RAID0, data is split into blocks that are written across all the drives in the array. As seen in the following illustration, instead of having to wait on the system to write 256k to one disk, RAID0 can simultaneously write 64k to each of the four disks in the array, offering superior I/O performance. This performance can be enhanced further by using multiple disk controllers. RAID0 does not provide any redundancy. This means that if one disk in the array fails, all of the data on the disks is lost. If the data is important, implement a backup strategy that regularly saves backups to a remote system or device. 2. Ensure that a suitable mount point exists. If this volume will become a root partition, then temporarily use another mount point such as /mnt. 3. Determine the device names for the disks which will be striped, and create the new stripe device. For example, to stripe two unused and unpartitioned ATA disks with device names of /dev/ad2 and /dev/ad3: gstripe label -v st0 /dev/ad2 /dev/ad3 Metadata value stored on /dev/ad2. Metadata value stored on /dev/ad3. Done. 4. Write a standard label, also known as a partition table, on the new volume and install the default bootstrap code: Many numbers will glide across the screen, and after a few seconds, the process will be complete. The volume has been created and is ready to be mounted. 7. To mount this striped file system automatically during the boot process, place the volume information in /etc/fstab. In this example, a permanent mount point, named stripe, is created: RAID1, or mirroring , is the technique of writing the same data to more than one disk drive. Mirrors are usually used to guard against data loss due to drive failure. Each drive in a mirror contains an identical copy of the data. When an individual drive fails, the mirror continues to work, providing data from the drives that are still functioning. The computer keeps running, and the administrator has time to replace the failed drive without user interruption. Two common situations are illustrated in these examples. The first creates a mirror out of two new drives and uses it as a replacement for an existing single drive. The second example creates a mirror on a single new drive, copies the old drive’s data to it, then inserts the old drive into the mirror. While this procedure is slightly more complicated, it only requires one new drive. Traditionally, the two drives in a mirror are identical in model and capacity, but gmirror(8) does not require that. Mirrors created with dissimilar drives will have a capacity equal to that of the smallest drive in the mirror. Extra space on larger drives will be unused. Drives inserted into the mirror later must have at least as much capacity as the smallest drive already in the mirror. The mirroring procedures shown here are non-destructive, but as wit