[OpenAFS] About `dafileserver` vs `fileserver` differences (for small cells)

[Benjamin Kaduk]

On Tue, Mar 05, 2019 at 10:25:23PM +0100, Måns Nilsson wrote:
> Subject: [OpenAFS] About `dafileserver` vs `fileserver` differences (for small cells) Date: Tue, Mar 05, 2019 at 10:05:25PM +0200 Quoting Ciprian Dorin Craciun (ciprian.craciun@gmail.com):
> > Hello all!
> > 
> > I understand from the documentation that the main difference between
> > `dafileserver` and `fileserver` is the "on-demand-attach" of volumes.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> > I ask this also from the perspective of a small cell operator (for
> > personal purposes), where attach-on-demand is not an issue, and in
> > fact I think I would prefer all my volumes to be attached as early as
> > possible.
> 
> As I recall, the demand attach file server is a scalability option. Which in practice means that if you need it, you know it. Me, I have a startup time under one minute for my small cell of some 400 volumes over 1,5TiB data. This using a small and old Supermicro machine with ZFS and FreeBSD. 

My recollection was that the dafs was to be generally preferred in all
cases.  But I haven't interacted closely with those bits, so I'm just
relaying hearsay; it would be good if someone closer to that work could
chime in.

-Ben