Disk set up on RAID server

E

edziffel

Going to redo a server from Linux to FreeBSD. Searched the forums and online but still not sure about specifics related to boot location and related to hardware specifics.

Server Hardware specs.
1 320GB SATA2 (for operating system)
5 2TB SATA3 (for RAID5)

Going to use software RAID. Special issue: the way the BIOS/motherboard works, the SATA3 drives are recognized first.

Code: 
dev/ad0
...
dev/ad5
meaning that the SATA2 drive I want to use for the operating system comes up/will probably come up as
/dev/ad6

In my linux config, had to allocate a small slice to on ad0 to use as a non-RAID partition for boot partition to boot from as the install would not install grub boot loader on any disk past ad1, or put in English, during the install, linux would not install grub on any disk past the second one recognized by the BIOS. Blah, blah, tried at least 8 different configurations, install on OS drive then add RAID, install grub manually, etc. with mixed results and varying side effects. Using the small allocated primary non-RAID partition on the first SATA3 drive was the most stable, least problematic, etc. Used GUID all drives and LVM just on the RAID. Worked great. No issues noted.

New install will be FreeBSD 9.0. Want to use ZFS with LVM on RAID but have OS on separate SATA2 disk as described above.

Based on the hardware workings as described:
  1. do I need to allocate a space on one of the first SATA3 drives as was done with linux for the boot partition?
  2. are there any other "gotchas" that might apply?
    Also, this is going to be an AMP server. Have seen a couple of posts talking about allocating large /var partitions for mysql, no doubt they meant for the database directory. Thinking that they are not planning on, or just unaware that you can use the mysql configuration file to move the data directory anywhere you like, or there is an issue with moving the mysql data directory with FreeBSD? This could make a huge difference in my disk usage/allocation plans.
  3. can anyone confirm that with mysql installed on a FreeBSD system, that moving the directory where the database files reside is materially similar to moving the mysql database directory on a linux install? Can this be done on FreeBSD just using mysql config files?
Thanks
Ed
 
Solved

No worries.

Will use trial and error. When you get down to it, how else?

The real issue is trying to use existing hardware for something it was not engineered for. The system was designed for Linux. If you knew you were going to do a FreeBSD install, then you would probably spec the system for SCSI not SATA anyway. That would likely would rendered this issue moot.

Thanks

Ed
 
The BIOS controls which drive the system will boot from, and that drive needs to have a freebsd-boot partition in addition to one or more UFS partitions. See the 9.0 install section in the Handbook, particularly Allocating Disk Space.

Use GPT or filesystem labels so the drive numbers are irrelevant.
 
Thanks Wblock@

Will post up results after finishing reading Absolute FreeBSD, an outstanding book in my opinion.

Thanks again.
 
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