GlusterFS (was Re: WinBlow$ Home Server equivalent)
On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 04:08:30PM -0400, Stefan Monnier (monnier@iro.umontreal.ca) wrote:
> > If someone has actual experience about dealing with lost
> > disk in WHS, please tell us.
>
> Actually, I'd rather you don't tell us: just tell him.
> This is a mailing list dedicated to Debian, so Windows discussions are
> off-topic.
Are comparisons with other OSes also considered off-topic here?
If so, my apologies. That's anyway my only interest here, I'm just
curious when I heard claims Windows can do something Linux can't.
But, more on-topic: it just occurred to me the suggested
(hypothetical) functionality could be achieved with GlusterFS.
I haven't actually tried it, but it should allow for a setup
where each disk has its own filesystem from the server's point
of view yet are shown as a single whole to the clients.
Every individual file would be on only one disk, but there'd
be no need to decide manually which goes where.
If you pull a disk out, only files on that disk are lost -
and are easily recoverable by plugging it in another machine even
without GlusterFS (obviously, if you pull a disk while it's being
mounted some files may end up corrupt, but no worse than
with single standalone disks).
Of course, it also allows bundling multiple servers
so that their disks appear as one to clients - that's
what it's actually designed for. But offhand I can't
see why it couldn't be used with a single server this way.
Has anybody here used GlusterFS with Debian?
Would (ab)using it that way make sense?
--
Tapani Tarvainen
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