We use LVM and software raid via md on every server. We use md to run raid 10 arrays and then we use LVM on top of that. We use snapshots to backup our mySQL servers and it works great. We do nightly snapshots and rsync/tar that stuff to central on line storage server. Though we do have to issue a lock tables command to our mySQL servers for the duration of the creation of the LVM snapshot, but after the snapshot is created we remove the locks.
For booting, we just use raid 1 on two partitions, no LVM. Debian seems to have no problem with installation, but it does not install grub into both drives mbr. You have to manually do that or if the hdd that does have grub installed fails your system will be unable to boot. Its been a while since I have double checked this, so it may have been fixed.
I was just running some bonnie tests yesterday on a test server and here are those results...
| name |
file_size |
putc |
putc_cpu |
put_block |
put_block_cpu |
rewrite |
rewrite_cpu |
getc |
getc_cpu |
get_block |
get_block_cpu |
seeks |
seeks_cpu |
num_files |
| dhcp187 |
32368M |
69293 |
99 |
209808 |
51 |
66438 |
13 |
49501 |
67 |
94315 |
9 |
777.3 |
0 |
16 |
| dhcp187 |
32368M |
68795 |
97 |
219512 |
51 |
65161 |
13 |
49648 |
67 |
93097 |
9 |
769.1 |
1 |
16 |
| dhcp187 |
32368M |
68501 |
98 |
222966 |
53 |
65132 |
13 |
49639 |
67 |
94043 |
9 |
762.7 |
1 |
16 |
| dhcp187 |
32368M |
69498 |
98 |
246923 |
58 |
63480 |
12 |
49937 |
67 |
94189 |
9 |
785 |
0 |
16 |
| dhcp187 |
32368M |
69324 |
98 |
230438 |
55 |
64656 |
12 |
49576 |
67 |
94046 |
9 |
749 |
1 |
16 |
Brian Schrock,