xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/ccd.4 (revision a1a4f1a0d87b594d3f17a97dc0127eec1417e6f6)
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.
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34.\"
35.\" $FreeBSD$
36.\"
37.Dd August 9, 1995
38.Dt CCD 4
39.Os NetBSD
40.Sh NAME
41.Nm ccd
42.Nd Concatenated Disk Driver
43.Sh SYNOPSIS
44.Cd "pseudo-device ccd 4"
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're familiar with how to generate kernels,
52how to properly configure disks and pseudo-devices in a kernel
53configuration file, and how to partition disks.
54.Pp
55Note that the
56.Sq raw
57partitions of the disks
58.Pa should not
59be combined.  The kernel will only allow component partitions of type
60FS_BSDFFS (type
61.Dq 4.2BSD
62as shown as
63.Xr disklabel 8 ).
64.Pp
65In order to compile in support for the ccd, you must add a line similar
66to the following to your kernel configuration file:
67.Bd -unfilled -offset indent
68pseudo-device	ccd	4	# concatenated disk devices
69.Ed
70.Pp
71The count argument is how many
72.Nm ccds
73memory is allocated for a boot time.  In this example, no more than 4
74.Nm ccds
75may be configured.
76.Pp
77A
78.Nm ccd
79may be either serially concatenated or interleaved.  To serially
80concatenate the partitions, specify the interleave factor of 0.
81.Pp
82There is a run-time utility that is used for configuring
83.Nm ccds .
84See
85.Xr ccdconfig 8
86for more information.
87.Ss The Interleave Factor
88If a
89.Nm ccd
90is interleaved correctly, a
91.Dq striping
92effect is achieved, which can increase sequential read/write
93performance.  The interleave factor is expressed in units of DEV_BSIZE
94(usually 512 bytes).  For large writes, the optimum interleave factor
95is typically the size of a track, while for large reads, it is about a
96quarter of a track. (Note that this changes greatly depending on the
97number and speed of disks.)  For instance, with eight 7,200 RPM drives
98on two Fast-Wide SCSI buses, this translates to about 128 for writes
99and 32 for reads.
100.Pp
101The best performance is achieved if all component disks have the same
102geometry and size.  Optimum striping cannot occur with different
103disk types.
104.Pp
105For random-access oriented workloads, such as news servers, a larger
106interleave factor (e.g., 65,536) is more desirable.  Note that there
107isn't much
108.Nm ccd
109can do to speed up applications that are seek-time limited.  Larger
110interleave factors will at least reduce the chance of having to seek
111two disk-heads to read one directory or a file.
112.Ss Disk Mirroring
113You can configure the
114.Nm ccd
115to
116.Dq mirror
117any even number of disks.  See
118.Xr ccdconfig 8
119for how to specify the necessary flags.  In an event of a disk
120failure, you can use
121.Xr dd 1
122to recover the failed disk.
123.Pp
124Note that a one-disk
125.Nm ccd
126is not the same as the original partition.  In particular, this means
127if you have a filesystem on a two-disk mirrored
128.Nm ccd
129and one of the disks fail, you cannot mount and use the remaining
130partition as itself; you have to configure it as a one-disk
131.Nm ccd.
132.Sh WARNINGS
133If just one (or more) of the disks in a
134.Nm ccd
135fails, the entire
136file system will be lost unless you are mirroring the disks.
137.Sh FILES
138/dev/{,r}ccd* - ccd device special files.
139.Pp
140.Sh HISTORY
141The concatenated disk driver was originally written at the University of
142Utah.
143.Sh SEE ALSO
144.Xr dd 1 ,
145.Xr ccdconfig 8 ,
146.Xr config 8 ,
147.Xr disklabel 8 ,
148.Xr fsck 8 ,
149.Xr MAKEDEV 8 ,
150.Xr mount 8 ,
151.Xr newfs 8 .
152