[OpenAFS] OpenAFS with RAID

[Horst Birthelmer]

On Dec 28, 2005, at 1:31 PM, Paul Robins wrote:
> Hey,
>   I'm looking at implimenting a 4 server system at work, with each  
> server having 2x200 gig hard drives with 3 raided partitions and  
> LVM on the third. I would like to use some form of AFS, however i'm  
> unsure of it's suitability. I would ideally like to somehow network  
> RAID the available storage space. I assume AFS contains no  
> provision for this so if not, would there be any conflict using AFS  
> on an LVM volume on MD raid?

I just assume you're planning to do this on Linux.
Since there is no other fileserver than a 'namei' on Linux, you can  
use it on any device (the LVM is usually completely transparent) and  
with any filesystem you think it suits best.

For the rest of the questions, I don't know how you think you can  
'network' RAIDs.

If you want to use available storage from all of your fileservers,  
that's what AFS will help you do.
You'll have one namespace and from a users perspective you won't have  
to care about where the storage actually is located.
Actually that's what a distributed and even a network file system is  
all about.

If you think of placing the network some layers lower, like in the  
block device, etc., AFS can't help.

Horst