.\" $NetBSD: ccd.4,v 1.5 1995/10/09 06:09:09 thorpej Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1994 Jason Downs. .\" Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 Jason R. Thorpe. .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software .\" must display the following acknowledgement: .\" This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project .\" by Jason Downs and Jason R. Thorpe. .\" 4. Neither the name of the author nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES .\" OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. .\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, .\" INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, .\" BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; .\" LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED .\" AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, .\" OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" $Id$ .\" .Dd August 9, 1995 .Dt CCD 4 .Os NetBSD .Sh NAME .Nm ccd .Nd Concatenated Disk Driver .Sh SYNOPSIS .Cd "pseudo-device ccd 4" .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm driver provides the capability of combining one or more disks/partitions into one virtual disk. .Pp This document assumes that you're familiar with how to generate kernels, how to properly configure disks and pseudo-devices in a kernel configuration file, and how to partition disks. .Pp Note that the .Sq raw partitions of the disks .Pa should not be combined. The kernel will only allow component partitions of type FS_BSDFFS (type .Dq 4.2BSD as shown as .Xr disklabel 8 ). .Pp In order to compile in support for the ccd, you must add a line similar to the following to your kernel configuration file: .Bd -unfilled -offset indent pseudo-device ccd 4 # concatenated disk devices .Ed .Pp The count argument is how many .Nm ccds memory is allocated for a boot time. In this example, no more than 4 .Nm ccds may be configured. .Pp A .Nm ccd may be either serially concatenated or interleaved. To serially concatenate the partitions, specify the interleave factor of 0. .Pp There is a run-time utility that is used for configuring .Nm ccds . See .Xr ccdconfig 8 for more information. .Ss The Interleave Factor If a .Nm ccd is interleaved correctly, a .Dq striping effect is achieved, which can increase sequential read/write performance. The interleave factor is expressed in units of DEV_BSIZE (usually 512 bytes). For large writes, the optimum interleave factor is typically the size of a track, while for large reads, it is about a quarter of a track. (Note that this changes greatly depending on the number and speed of disks.) For instance, with eight 7,200 RPM drives on two Fast-Wide SCSI buses, this translates to about 128 for writes and 32 for reads. .Pp The best performance is achieved if all component disks have the same geometry and size. Optimum striping cannot occur with different disk types. .Pp For random-access oriented workloads, such as news servers, a larger interleave factor (e.g., 65,536) is more desirable. Note that there isn't much .Nm ccd can do to speed up applications that are seek-time limited. Larger interleave factors will at least reduce the chance of having to seek two disk-heads to read one directory or a file. .Ss Disk Mirroring You can configure the .Nm ccd to .Dq mirror any even number of disks. See .Xr ccdconfig 8 for how to specify the necessary flags. In an event of a disk failure, you can use .Xr dd 1 to recover the failed disk. .Pp Note that a one-disk .Nm ccd is not the same as the original partition. In particular, this means if you have a filesystem on a two-disk mirrored .Nm ccd and one of the disks fail, you cannot mount and use the remaining partition as itself; you have to configure it as a one-disk .Nm ccd. .Sh WARNINGS If just one (or more) of the disks in a .Nm ccd fails, the entire file system will be lost unless you are mirroring the disks. .Sh FILES /dev/{,r}ccd* - ccd device special files. .Pp .Sh HISTORY The concatenated disk driver was originally written at the University of Utah. .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr dd 1 , .Xr ccdconfig 8 , .Xr config 8 , .Xr disklabel 8 , .Xr fsck 8 , .Xr MAKEDEV 8 , .Xr mount 8 , .Xr newfs 8 .