xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/ccd.4 (revision 3c4ba5f55438f7afd4f4b0b56f88f2bb505fd6a6)
1.\"	$NetBSD: ccd.4,v 1.5 1995/10/09 06:09:09 thorpej Exp $
2.\"
3.\" Copyright (c) 1994 Jason Downs.
4.\" Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 Jason R. Thorpe.
5.\" All rights reserved.
6.\"
7.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
8.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
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14.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
15.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
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17.\"	This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project
18.\"	by Jason Downs and Jason R. Thorpe.
19.\" 4. Neither the name of the author nor the names of its contributors
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35.\" $FreeBSD$
36.\"
37.Dd August 9, 1995
38.Dt CCD 4
39.Os
40.Sh NAME
41.Nm ccd
42.Nd Concatenated Disk driver
43.Sh SYNOPSIS
44.Cd "device ccd"
45.Sh DESCRIPTION
46The
47.Nm
48driver provides the capability of combining one or more disks/partitions
49into one virtual disk.
50.Pp
51This document assumes that you are familiar with how to generate kernels,
52how to properly configure disks and devices in a kernel
53configuration file, and how to partition disks.
54.Pp
55In order to compile in support for the
56.Nm ,
57you must add a line similar
58to the following to your kernel configuration file:
59.Pp
60.Dl "device	ccd		# concatenated disk devices"
61.Pp
62As of the
63.Fx 3.0
64release, you do not need to
65configure your kernel with
66.Nm
67but may instead use it as a kernel loadable
68module.
69Simply running
70.Xr ccdconfig 8
71will load the module into the kernel.
72.Pp
73A
74.Nm
75may be either serially concatenated or interleaved.
76To serially
77concatenate the partitions, specify the interleave factor of 0.
78Note that mirroring may not be used with an interleave factor of 0.
79.Pp
80There is a run-time utility that is used for configuring
81.Nm Ns s .
82See
83.Xr ccdconfig 8
84for more information.
85.Ss The Interleave Factor
86If a
87.Nm
88is interleaved correctly, a
89.Dq striping
90effect is achieved, which can increase sequential read/write
91performance.
92The interleave factor is expressed in units of
93.Dv DEV_BSIZE
94(usually 512 bytes).
95For large writes, the optimum interleave factor
96is typically the size of a track, while for large reads, it is about a
97quarter of a track.
98(Note that this changes greatly depending on the
99number and speed of disks.)
100For instance, with eight 7,200 RPM drives
101on two Fast-Wide SCSI buses, this translates to about 128 for writes
102and 32 for reads.
103A larger interleave tends to work better when the
104disk is taking a multitasking load by localizing the file I/O from
105any given process onto a single disk.
106You lose sequential performance when
107you do this, but sequential performance is not usually an issue with a
108multitasking load.
109.Pp
110An interleave factor must be specified when using a mirroring configuration,
111even when you have only two disks (i.e., the layout winds up being the same
112no matter what the interleave factor).
113The interleave factor will determine
114how I/O is broken up, however, and a value 128 or greater is recommended.
115.Pp
116.Nm
117has an option for a parity disk, but does not currently implement it.
118.Pp
119The best performance is achieved if all component disks have the same
120geometry and size.
121Optimum striping cannot occur with different
122disk types.
123.Pp
124For random-access oriented workloads, such as news servers, a larger
125interleave factor (e.g., 65,536) is more desirable.
126Note that there
127is not much
128.Nm
129can do to speed up applications that are seek-time limited.
130Larger
131interleave factors will at least reduce the chance of having to seek
132two disk-heads to read one directory or a file.
133.Ss Disk Mirroring
134You can configure the
135.Nm
136to
137.Dq mirror
138any even number of disks.
139See
140.Xr ccdconfig 8
141for how to specify the necessary flags.
142For example, if you have a
143.Nm
144configuration specifying four disks, the first two disks will be mirrored with
145the second two disks.
146A write will be run to both sides of
147the mirror.
148A read will be run to either side of the mirror depending
149on what the driver believes to be most optimal.
150If the read fails,
151the driver will automatically attempt to read the same sector from the
152other side of the mirror.
153Currently
154.Nm
155uses a dual seek zone model to optimize reads for a multi-tasking load
156rather than a sequential load.
157.Pp
158In an event of a disk
159failure, you can use
160.Xr dd 1
161to recover the failed disk.
162.Pp
163Note that a one-disk
164.Nm
165is not the same as the original partition.
166In particular, this means
167if you have a file system on a two-disk mirrored
168.Nm
169and one of the disks fail, you cannot mount and use the remaining
170partition as itself; you have to configure it as a one-disk
171.Nm .
172You cannot replace a disk in a mirrored
173.Nm
174partition without first backing up the partition, then replacing the disk,
175then restoring the partition.
176.Ss Linux Compatibility
177The
178.Tn Linux
179compatibility mode does not try to read the label that
180.Tn Linux Ns '
181.Xr md 4
182driver leaves on the raw devices.
183You will have to give the order
184of devices and the interleave factor on your own.
185When in
186.Tn Linux
187compatibility mode,
188.Nm
189will convert the interleave factor from
190.Tn Linux
191terminology.
192That means you give the same interleave factor that you
193gave as chunk size in
194.Tn Linux .
195.Pp
196If you have a
197.Tn Linux
198.Xr md 4
199device in
200.Dq legacy
201mode, do not use the
202.Dv CCDF_LINUX
203flag in
204.Xr ccdconfig 8 .
205Use the
206.Dv CCDF_NO_OFFSET
207flag instead.
208In that case you have to convert
209the interleave factor on your own, usually it is
210.Tn Linux Ns '
211chunk size multiplied by two.
212.Pp
213Using a
214.Tn Linux
215RAID this way is potentially dangerous and can destroy
216the data in there.
217Since
218.Fx
219does not read the label used by
220.Tn Linux ,
221changes in
222.Tn Linux
223might invalidate the compatibility layer.
224.Pp
225However, using this is reasonably safe if you test the compatibility
226before mounting a RAID read-write for the first time.
227Just using
228.Xr ccdconfig 8
229without mounting does not write anything to the
230.Tn Linux
231RAID.
232Then you do a
233.Nm fsck.ext2fs Pq Pa ports/sysutils/e2fsprogs
234on the
235.Nm
236device using the
237.Fl n
238flag.
239You can mount the file system read-only to check files in there.
240If all this works, it is unlikely that there is a problem with
241.Nm .
242Keep in mind that even when the
243.Tn Linux
244compatibility mode in
245.Nm
246is working correctly, bugs in
247.Fx Ap s
248.Nm ex2fs
249implementation would still destroy
250your data.
251.Sh WARNINGS
252If just one (or more) of the disks in a
253.Nm
254fails, the entire
255file system will be lost unless you are mirroring the disks.
256.Pp
257If one of the disks in a mirror is lost, you should still
258be able to back up your data.
259If a write error occurs, however, data
260read from that sector may be non-deterministic.
261It may return the data
262prior to the write or it may return the data that was written.
263When a
264write error occurs, you should recover and regenerate the data as soon
265as possible.
266.Pp
267Changing the interleave or other parameters for a
268.Nm
269disk usually destroys whatever data previously existed on that disk.
270.Sh FILES
271.Bl -tag -width ".Pa /dev/ccd*"
272.It Pa /dev/ccd*
273.Nm
274device special files
275.El
276.Sh SEE ALSO
277.Xr dd 1 ,
278.Xr ccdconfig 8 ,
279.Xr config 8 ,
280.Xr disklabel 8 ,
281.Xr fsck 8 ,
282.Xr gvinum 8 ,
283.Xr mount 8 ,
284.Xr newfs 8
285.Sh HISTORY
286The concatenated disk driver was originally written at the University of
287Utah.
288