xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/ccd.4 (revision 63f9a4cb2684a303e3eb2ffed39c03a2e2b28ae0)
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.\"
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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.Sh WARNINGS
177If just one (or more) of the disks in a
178.Nm
179fails, the entire
180file system will be lost unless you are mirroring the disks.
181.Pp
182If one of the disks in a mirror is lost, you should still
183be able to back up your data.
184If a write error occurs, however, data
185read from that sector may be non-deterministic.
186It may return the data
187prior to the write or it may return the data that was written.
188When a
189write error occurs, you should recover and regenerate the data as soon
190as possible.
191.Pp
192Changing the interleave or other parameters for a
193.Nm
194disk usually destroys whatever data previously existed on that disk.
195.Sh FILES
196.Bl -tag -width ".Pa /dev/ccd*"
197.It Pa /dev/ccd*
198.Nm
199device special files
200.El
201.Sh HISTORY
202The concatenated disk driver was originally written at the University of
203Utah.
204.Sh SEE ALSO
205.Xr dd 1 ,
206.Xr ccdconfig 8 ,
207.Xr config 8 ,
208.Xr disklabel 8 ,
209.Xr fsck 8 ,
210.Xr mount 8 ,
211.Xr newfs 8 ,
212.Xr vinum 8
213