Re: Reiserfs with Samba vs NetApp Filer

[Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com>]

Andreas Dilger wrote:

>On Oct 13, 2002  01:55 +0400, Hans Reiser wrote:
>  
>
>>Someday not too long from now, it will look like one filesystem even 
>>though it is in multiple cases.  Whether that is in reiser5 or reiser6 
>>depends on what sponsors fund first.
>>    
>>
>
>Hans,
>you should take a look at Lustre - www.lustre.org.  We are basically
>already developing what you are suggesting - a distributed filesystem
>which is built atop two or more local filesystems.  The aggregate
>throughput of N lustre storage servers is basically N times the
>throughput of a single server (clients communicate directly with the
>storage targets, so the cross-sectional bandwidth in perfectly
>scalable on a switched network).
>
>Like Intermezzo, Lustre can be stacked on top of journaling local
>filesystems, so it would be possible to use reiserfs for both the
>metadata and storage targets.
>
>We are deploying on a 1000-node cluster early next year, and expect
>total throughput around 4GB/s (we have already made a limited test
>at 1.4GB/s) with 90TB of storage - on a 2.4 kernel.  Because we are
>using multiple separate filesystems, we are not hampered by the
>2TB block device limit, and we get all sorts of parallelisms that
>are not possible with a single large server.
>
>Cheers, Andreas
>--
>Andreas Dilger
>http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/
>http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2resize/
>
>
>
>  
>
I really don't understand what is the advantage of object based disk 
storage.  It seems like its main effect is to prevent people from coming 
up with optimizations the drive manufacturer did not think of.  I don't 
at all understand these supposed metadata advantages.  We are lucky that 
we don't have in disk drives the sort of innovation inhibiting 
separation of compilers and CPUs that our compatriots in the language 
design business suffer from.  The more smarts that go into the drive, 
the more our field will ossify, unless they work closely with FS authors.

I enjoyed reading about your project, thanks for the URL.

Hans