Storage Application Note <author>Stein Gjoen, <tt/sgjoen@nyx.net/ <date>v0.02, 17 November 2000 <abstract> <nidx>storage</nidx> This Application Note gives an overview of how a Linux based system can serve in various storage applications and where to get more information </abstract>  <toc>  <sect>Introduction <nidx>storage!introduction</nidx> Storage is becoming cheaper with time while storage requirements are ever increasing. With the increased amounts of data as well as access speed the demands for reliability is also coming into focus. With the Linux operating system all these requirements and more too are met, making high performance solution cost efficient. The latest version number of this document can be gleaned from my plan entry if you  <url url="http://www.cs.indiana.edu/finger/nox.nyx.net/sgjoen" name="finger"> my Nyx account. The latest version of this Application Note will be available on my web space on Nyx in a number of formats: <itemize> <item> <url url="http://www.nyx.net/˜sgjoen/storage.html" name="HTML"> <item> <url url="http://www.nyx.net/˜sgjoen/storage.txt" name="plain ASCII text"> <item> <url url="http://www.nyx.net/˜sgjoen/storage.sgml" name="SGML source"> </itemize> <sect1>Copyright Copyright (c) 2000 by Stein Gjoen Please freely copy and distribute (sell or give away) this document in any format. It's requested that corrections and/or comments be forwarded to the document maintainer. You may create a derivative work and distribute it provided that you: <itemize> <item> Send your derivative work (in the most suitable format such as sgml) to the LDP (Linux Documentation Project) or the like for posting on the Internet. If not the LDP, then let the LDP know where it is available. <item> License the derivative work with this same license or use GPL. Include a copyright notice and at least a pointer to the license used. <item> Give due credit to previous authors and major contributors. </itemize> If you're considering making a derived work other than a translation, it's requested that you discuss your plans with the current maintainer. <sect1>Disclaimer Use the information in this document at your own risk. I disavow any potential liability for the contents of this document. Use of the concepts, examples, and/or other content of this document is entirely at your own risk. All copyrights are owned by their owners, unless specifically noted otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark. Naming of particular products or brands should not be seen as endorsements. You are strongly recommended to take a backup of your system before major installation and backups at regular intervals.  Any comments or suggestions can be mailed to my mail address on Nyx: <htmlurl url="mailto:sgjoen@mail.nyx.net/" name="sgjoen@mail.nyx.net">  <sect>Hardware <nidx>storage!hardware</nidx> Linux supports today most current storage related hardware that can be connected to the ATA or SCSI bus such as hard disks CD-ROMs and CD writers, DVD ROM and tape storage. Please refer to the hardware guide and Linux distribution vendor references for details. There is also a <url url="http://www.linuxdoc.org/Hardware-HOWTO/" name="Hardware RAID"> with extensive lists of hardware supported by Linux. There are also some HOWTOs for specific hardware such as for <url url="http://www.linuxdoc.org/Jaz-Drive-HOWTO.html" name="Jaz drives">, <url url="http://www.linuxdoc.org/DPT-Hardware-RAID.html" name="DPT SCSI RAID controllers">, <url url="http://www.linuxdoc.org/Large-Disk-HOWTO.html" name="Large disk drives">. There is also information on interfacing devices to the <url url="http://www.linuxdoc.org/SCSI-Programming-HOWTO.html" name="SCSI bus">. Naturally many manufacturers of controllers, such as IDE, SCSI, RAID etc, also support Linux For convenience it is possible to buy fully integrated Linux based turn key systems from a number of vendors. <sect>Software <nidx>storage!software</nidx> In addition to Linux based device drivers Linux also supports extended functionality such as <url url="http://ostenfeld.dk/˜jakob/Software-RAID.HOWTO/" name="Software RAID"> for extended performance and reliability and <url url="http://www.linuxdoc.org/LVM-HOWTO.html" name="Logical Volume Management"> for ease of scaling storage systems Disk configuration optimising is detailled in the <url url="http://www.nyx.net/˜sgjoen/disk.html" name="Multi Disk HOWTO"> Often high availability is an important issue and again Linux supports this extensively, refer to the <url url="http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/ALPHA/linux-ha/High-Availability-HOWTO.html" name="High Availability HOWTO"> for more information. <sect>Integration <nidx>storage!integration</nidx> Linux can integrate well with a number of other system, not just by networking but also in storage. For instance Linux is capable of reading and writing a number of file systems as used by other operating systems. This is outlined in the <url url="http://www.linuxdoc.org/Filesystem-HOWTO/" name="File System HOWTO"> which includes a connectivity map. Also Linux can coexist with other operating systems on the same hard disk making multi boot possible. More information is found in the <url url="http://www.linuxdoc.org/Linux+DOS+Win95+OS2.html" name="Linux+DOS+Win95+OS2 HOWTO"> and the <url url="http://www.linuxdoc.org/Linux+FreeBSD.html" name="Linux+FreeBSD.html"> to mention but a few. <sect>Further Information <nidx>storage!information</nidx> More information of guides and supporting documents can be obtained free and on line from the <url url="http://www.LinuxDoc.org" name="Linux Documentation Project">. <sect>Summary <nidx>storage!summary</nidx> Large scale Linux based storage systems are already in widespread use in the industry, showing Linux is a working solution for storage and reliability scaling from personal use to global internet based providers such as <url url="http://www.Google.com" name="Google"> and <url url="http://www.deja.com" name="Deja">. </article>