[Beowulf] Big storage

[Gerry Creager]

We've used AoE (CoRAID hardware) with pretty good success (modulo one 
RAID shelf fire that was caused by a manufacturing defect and dealt with 
promptly by CoRAID).  We've had some reliability issues with Areca cards 
but no data corruption on the systems we've built that way.

gerry

Bruce Allen wrote:
> Hi Xavier,
> 
>>>>> PPS: We've also been doing some experiments with putting 
>>>>> OpenSolaris+ZFS on some of our generic (Supermicro + Areca) 16-disk 
>>>>> RAID systems, which were originally intended to run Linux.
> 
>>>>  I think that DESY proved some data corruption with such 
>>>> configuration, so they switched to OpenSolaris+ZFS.
> 
>>> I'm confused.  I am also talking about OpenSolaris+ZFS.  What did 
>>> DESY try, and what did they switch to?
> 
>> Sorry, I am indeed not clear. As far as I know, DESY found data 
>> corruption using Linux and Areca cards. They moved from linux to 
>> OpenSolaris and ZFS, avoiding other corruption. This has been 
>> discussed in HEPiX storage workgroup. However, I can not speak on 
>> their behalf at all. I'll try to get you in touch with someone more 
>> aware of this issue, as my statements lack of figures.
> 
> I think that would be very interesting to the entire Beowulf mailing 
> list, so please suggest that they respond to the entire group, not just 
> to me personally.  Here is an LKML thread about silent data corruption:
> http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2007/9/10/191697
> 
> So far we have not seen any signs of data corruption on Linux+Areca 
> systems (and our data files carry both internal and external checksums, 
> so we would be sensitive to this).
> 
> Cheers,
>     Bruce
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-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University	
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