logical volumes & striping

[Luc Chouinard]

We have 6 scsi disks on two controlers, and we are
considering using a striped logical volume for one
of our partitions.

This logical volume would be spread across four disks, two
on each controler.

We estimate that about 50 users will access this partition
at the same time.

We currently believe that striping is always a good thing
to do.  It distributes uniformely the disk access throughout
the controlers.

We have just been advised by a knowledgeable person that
this would not be true in all cases, specifically ours.
And the explanation that was given to us makes sense.

We would appreciate your opinions on the matter of using
striped volumes, according to the different environments.
More specifically, we would like to know if there is an
overhead associated with accessing a single block in a
striped logical volume, versus a standard partition.

Any comment will be appreciated.

                                        Thank you.
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+---------------------------------------------------------+
| Andre Paquet Analyst        University of Montreal      +
| Computer Center             paqueta at jsp.umonteal.ca     +
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