Install partitioning with Greyhole in mind.

[dalben]

I've posted this on the beginners forum but thought I might get a quicker response here. I have my new kit here screaming to be installed and used...

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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.
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So basically, how do I do the initial partitions so that /var/hda/files ends up only on the 4 x 2TB drives, with Greyhole on them, and everything else (swap, root, homes etc) end up on the single 500gb drive.

[sandstroem]

Hi dalben,

When installing Fedora with Amahi you need to consider how the disks should be used.

Ok, you have 1x 500gb drive. 4x2tb drives. Now, the 4x2tb drives will be used as greyhole storage pool.
Additionally you need a "Landing Zone", this is where your files initially "lands" before greyhole starts distributing them to the storage drives.

The Landing Zone, by default, is mounted in /var/hda/files.

The storage drives are mounted like this:

/var/hda/files/drives/drive1
/var/hda/files/drives/drive2
/var/hda/files/drives/drive3
/var/hda/files/drives/drive4

After greyhole moved the files from the Landing Zone to the Storage Pool, the space in the Landing Zone will be free'd up again. You should not have to small Landing Zone.

About partitioning and installing, please read up on these instructions:

http://wiki.amahi.org/index.php/Fedora_14_install_guide

Good Luck!

[da9els]

I have an almost identical setup and after a couple of tries I've ended up with this config:

HDD1 contains 50GB for boot, root, swap and home. The remainder 450GB is mounted as /var/hda/files for LZ and /torrents. HDD2-5 contains all greyhole shares except.
It seems to be an OK solution. But since the disk is active all the time - more or less, I've had to replace it with a server grade disk because the old WD Blue simply gave up

I hope that sheds som lights and good luck with the build

/daniel

[DragonQ]

I don't know if there's a downside but I do something that I don't see mentioned often here: I have the landing zone in my storage pool. This way, I never have to wait for copies to be made and balancing to occur; it's done instantly.

I also don't have to worry about whether to have a small landing zone to free up space for the storage pool or a large one to allow larger file copies; I get to use 100% of my disk space for greyhole (minus the small system partitions like root, home and boot).

[da9els]

I don't know if there's a downside but I do something that I don't see mentioned often here: I have the landing zone in my storage pool. This way, I never have to wait for copies to be made and balancing to occur; it's done instantly.

The problem is that when running torrents or ftp most of the disks will be active almost all the time. I use one disk for system, torrents and LZ and the remainder spin down when idle. That lets me buy cheaper disks and saves the planet

[DragonQ]

My "torrents" and "downloads" shares aren't in the storage pool so the non-landing-zone disks should be off most of the time for me too.

[da9els]

Clever

[ludvikah]

I don't know if there's a downside but I do something that I don't see mentioned often here: I have the landing zone in my storage pool. This way, I never have to wait for copies to be made and balancing to occur; it's done instantly.

I also don't have to worry about whether to have a small landing zone to free up space for the storage pool or a large one to allow larger file copies; I get to use 100% of my disk space for greyhole (minus the small system partitions like root, home and boot).

pardon me for asking, but
how do you set up the greyhole like this?
This is exactly how I would like to have it as well.

[sgtfoo]

To have your LZ inside the greyhole pool, just add all the partitions to the greyhole in the HDA dashboard.
.... Except of course for the system drive.

[ludvikah]

To have your LZ inside the greyhole pool, just add all the partitions to the greyhole in the HDA dashboard.
.... Except of course for the system drive.

As easy as that,
thank you.