[dm-devel] [End-User Q] Production quality of Fedora Core 2 (new install) with LVM2+Snapshots? (clarification)

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Sat, 2004-07-24 at 11:37, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> I'd rather make this the least painful for upgrading in the future,
> but if LVM2 snapshots are not trusted, at least compared to LVM, then I
> will stick with FC1/LVM.
>  ...
> It will be loaded in around 2 weeks, given hardware procurement,
> server rotation and other timing.  I'm looking for the best Fedora
> release at that time.

Let me clarify this.

- If "Real Soon Now(TM)," then I want to go LVM2 and wait

If production-trusted LVM2+DM is "Real Soon Now(TM)" (RSN), I'd rather
go ahead and go FC2+LVM2 without snapshots, and then enable snapshots
when the Kernel w/DM is trusted at a latter date.

Of my primary concern is always the integrity of data.  I assume
snapshots are not too much of an issue, because if something goes wrong,
I (hope) I only lose part of the snapshot, and not the current data of
the filesystem.

- Reliability of snapshots with occassional, possibly 2GB+ files?

The system with be an older dual-P3 using a ServerWorks chipset (storage
and NIC on their own PCI _busses_), and 1GB SDRAM.  I'm more interested
in the snapshot feature than any performance, but it is likely that
there could be 2GB+ files on the volume.  Any issues with that? 
I assume not since LVM2 is just doing block-type mappings so file size
doesn't matter (although I'm suer total number of block chanege may
cause some issues).

Performance is secondary -- although an eventual consideration if
performance brings the server to a crawl.  Again, I'm open to any
filesystem atop of LVM2 as long as it has 0 issues with NFS.  Flat out
let me know if LVM2+DM+Snapshots is not recommended for NFS servers as
well.


-- 
     Linux Enthusiasts call me anti-Linux.
   Windows Enthusisats call me anti-Microsoft.
 They both must be correct because I have over a
decade of experience with both in mission critical
environments, resulting in a bigotry dedicated to
 mitigating risk and focusing on technologies ...
           not products or vendors
--------------------------------------------------
Bryan J. Smith, E.I.            b.j.smith at ieee.org