Openfiler data recovery after OS drive failed

network-attached-storageopenfiler

About to set up a NAS/SAN using Openfiler with the Openfiler OS on drive1, drive2 and drive3 will be used to store data (RAID 1 setup).

In case of drive1 failed, would my data stored in the RAID 1 array (drive2 + drive2) be recoverable after I replace drive1 with a good disk with a fresh install of Openfiler again?

I tried this on a VM setup but the new Openfiler install can only detect that exist a RAID volume, the web GUI has no entry point to link back the data volume.

Thanks.

Best Answer

OpenFiler uses pretty standard Linux methods for setting up its storage. The Drive2/Drive3 setup will be based in LVM. Once you get a Linux operating system back on to Drive1 after a failure, it should pick up the fact that the other disks have recognizable storage on them. Whether or not the GUI will pick this up remains to be seen, but the data will all be there.

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A Comparison FreeNAS vs OpenFiler,

If you are big business, and don’t have the internal resources to setup and manage a SAN, Xinit Systems has different support services for you. But don’t forget that the FreeNAS developers will also welcome your business, and will gladly (I’m sure) help you setup a FreeNAS-based SAN.

If you are a home user and just need a NAS server (most home users will have no need for a SAN), either one should do just fine. Your choice will likely depend on whether you are more comfortable with a Linux-based system or a BSD-based one.

Further,

In the conclusion Linuxbsdos.com writes, “The main difference between FreeNAS and Openfiler is that one is a network-attached storage (NAS) server, while the other serves as both a NAS and a SAN (Storage Area Network) server. The SAN feature of Openfiler is what makes it appealing to enterprise and business users.”

The reason for this is that the reviewer didn’t know that FreeNAS also has iSCSI target capabilities and they only list iSCSI initiator in the feature list of FreeNAS.

Which probably led to some updates in the initial article.

Time to sync a 1.5TB RAID1 array

you could change:

/proc/sys/dev/raid/speed_limit_min
/proc/sys/dev/raid/speed_limit_max

to higher numbers. Some of the OS defaults are not really optimized for today's higher speed drives.

Depending on the bus bandwidth and system activity, 1.5 terabytes could take 20+ hours. If a drive fails, you will just split IO between your normal activity and reconstruction. Yes, you would have to allow it to reconstruct if there was a failure, but, it would still be available to use.

Best Answer

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Time to sync a 1.5TB RAID1 array

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