Hi there !

I have three hard drive, all of them are 9.1 gig, in a Sun StorEdge MultiPack 711 SCSI Disk Array 599-2261-01, here is the drives:

bash-2.03# format
Searching for disks...done


AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c0t0d0 <QUANTUM FIREBALL_TM2110A cyl 4090 alt 2 hd 16 sec 63>
/pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/dad@0,0
1. c1t1d0 <SUN9.0G cyl 4924 alt 2 hd 27 sec 133>
/pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@3/SUNW,isptwo@4/sd@1,0
2. c1t2d0 <SUN9.0G cyl 4924 alt 2 hd 27 sec 133>
/pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@3/SUNW,isptwo@4/sd@2,0
3. c1t5d0 <SUN9.0G cyl 4924 alt 2 hd 27 sec 133>
/pci@1f,0/pci@1/pci@3/SUNW,isptwo@4/sd@5,0

As you can see it is drive 1-2-3 because 0 is IDE (i have a ultra5).

The last one c1t5d0, i've check with the model number, and it appear to be a 7200rpm.

Can i do a good Raid 5 with all those drives? With Volume Management and/or Veritas ?

thank you,
TanGU.

Hi TanGU,

Volume Manager comes free with solaris (always a good reason alone to use it)
Veritas costs (an arm and a leg) by all accounts. Both will support RAID-5.
normal rule of thumb is to have identical disks.

I'm not sure what the implications of having 1 slower disk in the RAID configuration will be (since it not recommended) I would take a guess and assume that the performace will be reduced to the slowest disk in the configuration, since your writing to all disks.
If this is just a test system or home system then try it out, see what happens, if this is for a production work system, I would think twice.

Hi thanks for your reply FragInHell

Okay i'll try that, with Volume Manager at first, and see the perf...

I think my perf are not really at is best right now, because i have a tape backup attach to my Multipack (same daisy chain), and i've read that cause the perf to be reduce by 50%. Instead of doing about 40megs/sec, i'm supposed to be doing about 20megs/sec (that is a thing that i've read on google).

Well, i'll see, it is for a home server so maybe i can live with that anyway

have a good day,
TanGU.

Good Luck.

also be warned if you use veritas, you can get a copy for trial with a 30 day demo license. Once the licenese expires your ok provided you don't reboot, if you reboot your in trouble, as veritas will refuse to start, all your disk groups and volumes will not be able to access them. If you create a root disk group on the root disk, you'll not even be able to boot the system...