Linux Noob. Setting up storage question

[dalben]

I'm fairly clueless when it comes to linux but I can follow instructions and deviate enough to get myself in a mess.

I am installing Amahi for the first time (for real, as opposed to some test installs).

I have 5 Hard Disks in my system.

A 500Gb disk which I want to be the OS/Boot/Swap/Root/Home - I think that's right. Basically everything that won't by my Data files. I want this disk to run the apps I have installed (i.e. SickBeard, SABNZBD, Couch Potato, Transmission) and be the one disk spinning most of the time. It needs to hold some storage as well, i.e. NZBs that are downloaded which will be moved to the data drives when the scripts finish.

I then have 4 x 2Tb drives that I want to be my Data storage and I think Greyhole running over them. I am assuming this is where /var/hda/files will be mounted.

The question I have is that I am getting confused at the storage area with physical LVMs, LVM groups, Standard Partions etc.

I can follow the instructions and get what I want on the 500Gb OS drive, but I can't seem to work out how to make the rest of the drives one logical volume that will work nicely with Amahi. I could go trial and error but any pointers that will have me a few reinstalls would be dead handy.

Cheers

[bigfoot65]

I would recommend you install with just the 500GB drive installed. Then once you have Amahi up and running, you can add the other drives.

Follow the guidance in the wiki for adding drives.

http://wiki.amahi.org/index.php/Adding_ ... o_your_HDA

My OS drive is 320GB. I did it without LVM following this guide.

http://wiki.amahi.org/index.php/Install_without_LVM

I then installed my 3 drives afterwards using the hda-diskmount script. I have added all 3 drives to the storage pool and Greyhole runs on them. My /var/hda/files is mounted on my OS drive as a 250GB partition. That is more than enough space for me.

If you follow the wiki, you could mount your /var/hda/files partition as 400GB plus which should handle most anything.

[dalben]

Thanks BF. A couple of questions if you don't mind.

I then installed my 3 drives afterwards using the hda-diskmount script. I have added all 3 drives to the storage pool and Greyhole runs on them. My /var/hda/files is mounted on my OS drive as a 250GB partition. That is more than enough space for me.

So. does that mean /var/hda/files doesn't have to be your data shares for the network ? I had assumed /var/hda/files is where I kept everything I wanted available to all users around the house.

My hopeful goal is to have the OS/Boot segregated off from my pure data storage. Ideally the data disks (4 x 2TB) will be able to spin down most of the time with just the OS/Boot doing what it needs to.

I'm still trying to understand if I understand, if that makes sense.

1 x 500GB for OS, Boot, Amahai, etc partitioned as root, home, swap - No Greyhole

4 x 2TB partitioned as one big /var/hda/files - Greyhole

Is this possible ? If so I'll start with the instructions you pointed me too but it seems to want me to add /var/hda/files which is what is confusing me at the moment.

[bigfoot65]

Not quite, what I mean is to disconnect all drives except the OS drive. Then with it, partition 500 for boot, 1024 for swap, 50 for root, and the rest make a ext4 partition. You will eventually mount that partition as /var/hda/files.

Once you install the OS and have Amahi working, you can do hda-diskmount and it should see the ext4 partition if the OS install did not catch it. Then you can modify the /etc/fstab to point that partition to /var/hda/files.

Once all that is done, you add the other drives and use hda-diskmount on them. Each will mount as drive1, drive2, etc. THen you can add those as storage pool drives. Greyhole will use the extra drives to duplicate files from the /var/hda/files drive. You have to tell it which shares and how many copies of files to store, which I recommend max.

So to recap, your 500GB drive will be OS and 450GBish for /var/hda/files which holds all the shares. That should be large enough for most anything. Once you add the other drives, they will hold duplicates of what is on /var/hda/files when you configure greyhole.

I hope I did not confuse you too much. This is not a typical setup for a noob, more for advanced. Most new users who have little or no experience do not attempt such an elaborate setup.

[dalben]

Ah, I see. I got confused with the numbers. I'm porting over ay least 2Tb of data which is why I was trying to keep things seperate and expandable. Trying to fit everything on a 500gb drive is impossible for me.