Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ukma!gatech!emory!arnold From: arnold@emory.uucp (Arnold D. Robbins {EUCC}) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Disk striping? (4.3 BSD) Message-ID: <2369@emory.uucp> Date: Thu, 3-Dec-87 12:56:37 EST Article-I.D.: emory.2369 Posted: Thu Dec 3 12:56:37 1987 Date-Received: Mon, 7-Dec-87 06:18:58 EST Organization: Math & Computer Science, Emory University, Atlanta Lines: 22 Something that I've been wondering about for a while, and which promises to expose my ignorance, is as follows. In standard 4.3 BSD, a disk partition is a partition is a partition. You cannot put two 7 Meg 'A' partitions together and use them like one 14 Meg partition. (Some vendors do allow this, e.g. Convex, but mostly it's few and far between.) However, there is a limited form of disk striping already in the BSD kernel: /dev/swap! One can swap on more than one physical disk at a time. My question is, how general or non-general are the mechanisms used in putting together the swap device? Is it unreasonable to adapt it for more general purposes? It seems to me that this would be really useful, as I'll bet lots of people have lots of unused 'A' and 'B' partitions. Is there any chance disk striping will be in 4.4 BSD? As they used to say, "Thanks in Advance". -- Arnold Robbins ARPA, CSNET: arnold@emory.ARPA BITNET: arnold@emory UUCP: { decvax, gatech, }!emory!arnold DOMAIN: arnold@emory.edu (soon) ``csh: just say NO!''