users Digest, Vol 101, Issue 55

[Philip Rhoades]

Mateusz,


> Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2012 11:52:51 +0200
> From: Mateusz Marzantowicz <mmarzantowicz at osdf.com.pl>
> To: users at lists.fedoraproject.org
> Subject: Re: Production server running from USB stilck with /var on 
> HD
> 	?
> Message-ID: <4FFBFB73.7070803 at osdf.com.pl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> On 10.07.2012 06:07, Philip Rhoades wrote:
>> People,
>>
>> I have been using RH and Fedora since the beginning and love it!  I
>> like to keep up with the latest version of Fedora on my production
>> server and although the install of the OS itself from a LiveCD/USB 
>> is
>> very fast, restoring all the other stuff takes quite a while.  To
>> reduce downtime of the server, what I did last time was to install 
>> to
>> a virtual machine which used a physical HD and then to reboot on the
>> new HD when it was ready to go.  Now I am thinking of installing to 
>> a
>> USB stick but having all the changeable files on /var (or anywhwere
>> else) symlinked to a dir on the HD for speed.  What are the 
>> potential
>> problems with this idea?
>
> There are no potential problems when you install whole system to USB
> stick or other flash card. You can then use your HD for data only.


OK.


> There is one thing you should consider before doing what you asked 
> for.
> USB is slow! Slower then SAS or SATA. You would hardly see any
> performance gains in boot up speed then. Additionally in "real" 
> servers
> a lot of time is spent on BIOS related procedures and with USB card 
> you
> must wait as well.


So even putting /var on the hard disk would not help much?


> You should probably assemble a little cluster and then use kvm for
> virtualization. It's very speed efficient to reboot virtual machines.


I did think of that but that does not resolve all the problems - it 
allows me to create a new (virtual) server quickly and swap it in when 
it is ready to go - so there is not much downtime BUT then the 
underlying OS doesn't get updated . . and I still have the same problem 
to update that.  I have been thinking about using a SSD for the OS but 
it would be nice to be able to plug in a new drive without taking the 
box apart - I suppose I could look for plug-n-play SSD that can be 
inserted into a drive-socket in a standard CD drive bay . .

Thanks,

Phil.
-- 
Philip Rhoades

GPO Box 3411
Sydney NSW	2001
Australia
E-mail:  phil at pricom.com.au