Operating System - HP-UX
1823921 Members
2889 Online
109667 Solutions
New Discussion юеВ

Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

 
Alzhy
Honored Contributor

Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

1. Is it possible to do RAID5 lvols in LVM?

2. LVM Mirroring -- is it now "free" in 11.31 or is MirrorDisk/UX still required? Just did a fresh install on an Itanic rx2660 and am surprised to see already some of the changes in v3.0.



Thanks.
Hakuna Matata.
18 REPLIES 18
Patrick Wallek
Honored Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

1. No. (I **think** Veritas Volume Manager [VxVM] can do this, but this is an additional cost product for the FULL version.)

2. MirrorDisk is still required to do mirroring. As to the FREE question -- No not really. If you buy the Enterprise Operating Environment (EOE) or higher level of the HP-UX OS, then Mirror Disk is included.
Hein van den Heuvel
Honored Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

Would you really want RAID5?
So much to lose, so little to gain!

http://www.miracleas.com/BAARF/RAID5_versus_RAID10.txt

You may want to review and consider the Oracle ASM. I've been highly sceptical about that, having had fine experiences and Tru64 LSM, HPUX LVM, Storage Controller based redundancy (EVA, HSx, XP,...) and RAW devices. My kneejerk reaction was to let Oracle to DB stuff and let the OS provision the storage, each doing best what they are good at. But if you think about it, Oracle does know more about how it is using the storage and how it might be using that better than the OS will ever know. It has an unfair advantage in that space (sic) which perhaps one should exploit, not resist. ASM does seem to deliver performance and availability, and it does seem to become accepted.

Hope this helps some,
Hein van den Heuvel (at gmail dot com)
HvdH Performance Consulting



Torsten.
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

LVM can't do RAID5, but a new feature are Striped and mirrored logical volumes.

Because this is a rx2660 you may consider to use hardware RAID. Depending on the installed controller, you can create several RAID levels.

Hope this helps!
Regards
Torsten.

__________________________________________________
There are only 10 types of people in the world -
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

__________________________________________________
No support by private messages. Please ask the forum!

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!   
Steven E. Protter
Exalted Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

Shalom,

RAID5 native? No.

You can however white a script that does small lvextend commands and rotates them among the a group of disks.

This can give you the protection and feel of Raid 5.

As far as mirror/ux goes, its still a product you have to pay for.

SEP
Steven E Protter
Owner of ISN Corporation
http://isnamerica.com
http://hpuxconsulting.com
Sponsor: http://hpux.ws
Twitter: http://twitter.com/hpuxlinux
Founder http://newdatacloud.com
melvyn burnard
Honored Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

In 11iV3 HP has updated LVM drastically, but sadly the RAID5 functionality that is available in VxVM (optional) is not one of the updates.
And for 11iV3 I believe that LVM mirroring is now included with the Enterprise OE, or available for free even.
Check with your local HP Sales Centre
My house is the bank's, my money the wife's, But my opinions belong to me, not HP!

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

On Integrity at least (not sure about PA-RISC) MirrorDisk/UX is now a FOC add-on, and the cost of EOE and MCOE has also been adjusted to reflect this. However if you just order a system with FOE, and don't request MirrorDisk/UX, you won't get it, even though it is FOC. So make sure you ask for it!

HTH

Duncan

I am an HPE Employee
Accept or Kudo
Pete Randall
Outstanding Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

Duncan,

What's "FOC"?


Pete

Pete
Alzhy
Honored Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

Free Of Charge?

Wow.. had I known.

Anyways I simply used base VxVM -- OS rooted and mirrored.

I don't think this little Itanic Turby got a SMART Array Controller. It would have made life a lot better.

As for the rest of the disks... we'll be waiting on a license transfer of full VxVM...

Man v3.0 is vastly changed but "accomodates" the skills sets of the pre v3.0 Admin.

Nice indeed.. but IMHO SOlaris 10 and the upcoming AIX 6 are still ahead...

Hakuna Matata.
Doug Burton
Respected Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

As far as #1.. don't know - sorry.

#2 is another question. I went to a local HP sponsored seminar about the new 11.31 and was told HP will not charge for mirroring. When? For what O/S version exactly? Don't know. Just what I was told by an HP person. More clarification would be real nice though.
Torsten.
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

IMHO (!) there is no big demand for a software RAID5 or similar.

I think in a typical setup nowadays you have a server with a hardware RAID connected (SAN).

For highly availability you can still mirror between different hardware RAIDs.

The server will have a set of 2 internal disks for mirrored boot disks. A third disk could be used for DRD.

If you have more internal disks (rx2660/rx3600/rx6600) you can use a hardware RAID like the P400 - this would not consume CPU power to calculate the RAID.

Hope this helps!
Regards
Torsten.

__________________________________________________
There are only 10 types of people in the world -
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

__________________________________________________
No support by private messages. Please ask the forum!

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!   
Geoff Wild
Honored Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

The hardware raid is nice - I have it on a RX6600 - downside - you need the server down to configure it (through EFI). Even if you add additional disks - you will need an outage to Hardware mirror them.

LVM mirroring is not free - included with EOE and MCOE...

There is talk that in 11iv4, lvm mirroring for just the root disk may be included...

v3 rocks - Persistent DSF is great!

Rgds...Geoff
Proverbs 3:5,6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make all your paths straight.
Torsten.
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

@Geoff: I have seen this several times - a new driver version will enable more commands and features for array cards, consider to check this.

Hope this helps!
Regards
Torsten.

__________________________________________________
There are only 10 types of people in the world -
those who understand binary, and those who don't.

__________________________________________________
No support by private messages. Please ask the forum!

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!   
Mike Shilladay
Esteemed Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

Hi Nelson,

As Duncan has already said, On Integrity servers, MirrorDisk IS free providing you ask for it. If you don't it doesn't appear.

We have just purchased and installed 2 Integrity rx2660 servers and requested MirrorDisk/UX and were not charged. I queried this and that is what happens - it is free - if nowhere else, certainly in the UK.

regards,

Mike.
Geoff Wild
Honored Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

Mike - is that on Foundation OE?

Rgds...Geoff
Proverbs 3:5,6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make all your paths straight.
John Payne_2
Honored Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

It's Itanium only, not PARisc. It's Mirrordisk, 11.23 or 11.31.

I could tell you the real reason they have made the change, but I think it's NDA right now. (Although the marketing answer is that it's "value add to you!")

John
Spoon!!!!
Geoff Wild
Honored Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

I have June 2007 11.23 installed on Itanium:

# swlist |grep OE
HPUX11i-OE B.11.23.0706 HP-UX Foundation Operating Environment Component

There is no mirroring included:

# lvextend -m 1 /dev/vg01/lvswap4
Usage: lvextend
[-A Autobackup]
{-l LogicalExtentsNumber |
-L LogicalVolumeSize}
LogicalVolumePath [ PhysicalVolumePath... | PhysicalVolumeGroupName... ]
"m": Illegal option.


Rgds...Geoff

Proverbs 3:5,6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make all your paths straight.

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

Geoff,

Like I said, thats cos its free of charge with new FOE orders *if* you request it. If this system was purchased before it was free of charge, or Mirrordisk wasn't requested with it, then you don't get it - it's still not in the FOE bundle.

HTH

Duncan

I am an HPE Employee
Accept or Kudo
Geoff Wild
Honored Contributor

Re: Is RAID5 Possible with LVM? Is LVM Mirroring now Free in 11.31?

Just got this back from one of our account reps:

"On new Integrity servers with dual core processors we can quote a "no cost" mirror-ux, this is the full version and it carries no software or support costs at least for the first three years."

Another thought I have is, Base VxVM does include root disk mirroring - means converting from lvm to VxVM.

http://docs.hp.com/en/5991-6386/5991-6386.pdf

Rgds...Geoff
Proverbs 3:5,6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make all your paths straight.