Hardware RAID question: OS that supports expanded volumes

Hi all,

After almost losing all of my data a few months ago, I finally had a friend bring his large file server over and I backed up all of my data. To recap, I had previously created my filesystem with:

Code: 
[root@localhost ~]# mkfs.xfs /dev/sdb

While upgrading drivers/firmware, the metadata got hosed and it was quite an adventure to recover. Some suggested to simply use LVM and I'm wondering if that's the better route to go. I was wondering how LVM interacts with adding a few disks to the hardware raid controller and migrating/expanding the original raid set. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Chester
 
IME XFS is fairly fragile compared to JFS or ext3. I've damaged the metadata accidentally a couple times. I'd suggest you use something else if you're not on a UPS that can shut your machine down safely.

I was wondering how LVM interacts with adding a few disks to the hardware raid controller and migrating/expanding the original raid set. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Works fine. pvresize and you're ready to go.
 
The 3Ware 9650SE-16ML has the battery backup module and the server is plugged into an APC battery backup. I also plan on installing a whole house natural gas generator (plan on having an aquarium and it's just nice in general to know that I would have power in case of an emergency).

Is there any benefit to XFS over ext3 or vice versa?

Basically, I have the above RAID card installed on a supermicro server board with 4GB ECC RAM and eight WD RE4-GP 2TB drives (will buy additional as I need more storage). What OS would you install and how would you configure it? I also have a 40GB Intel SSD going in for the boot/OS drive.

Thanks,
Chester
 
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