Under very high load and many concurrent read requests (I set up the company’s mail server with ZFS and root from ZFS), the two disks in the Raid array repeatedly lost sync, forcing an automatic re-silvering (auto healing) process to be started, which blocked the system as everything (except /boot) was running from that ZFS arrray. As far as I figured out, the system halted entirely as there was another inconsistency occuring while the re-silvering was still in progress.

I would have investigated further, if it wasn’t a crucial production machine. And that kind of traffic is very difficult to simulate under laboratory situations (maybe I can do that when I have more time). So I had to revert back to UFS as the downtime had to be minimized. It’s a shame, really, because I love the features ZFS offers. On my private server it runs very smoothly, but traffic, load and I/O are not comparable to the mail server in question.

After having set up the minimal FreeBSD and doing some tuning (such as creating the ZFS volumes), I ran some tests. You won’t believe me, but writing a 10GB file (/dev/random to the ZFS volume) resulted in a transfer rate at about 160MB/sec and reading (cp testfile /dev/null) was done at a speed of more than 270MB/sec!!

To be continued…

Consequently we asked for quotes on bigger NetApp devices. Unfortunately, they cost more than a good car. The investigation on other solutions began…

After doing some research and testing as well performance as failure behaviour, the decision was made: I will setup a storage cluster based on i386 hardware and GlusterFS. Its speed was quite impressive. And also the fact that mirroring (for data security) and striping (for performance) can be combined, is very convincing.

We will start with two huge servers which run partly in mirrored and partly in striped mode. The only thing which needs to be tested before hand is, if FreeBSD’s UFS in combination with its snapshot feature makes sense here (this could be a bit tricky). If it works, this solution will be as good as the proprietary offer. But it costs less than 1/5!

I will keep you posted.

This was how I got my first Mac OS based computer. It did not take long to make me love it, because the difference between Mac OS and other operating systems is, that they kept an eye on detail. They built an OS which clearly works and seldomly causes any hassle. Mac OS combines a great UI with an incredibly good usuability and a solid and stable foundation: Darwin/BSD. Since I got my MacBook Pro, it never freezed, it never crashed and it never did anything unexpected. Can Windows do that? And there was no problem getting parts of the hardware to work properly within a minimum amount of time. Can Linux do that?

To cut a long story short: I am not a freak any more who is willing to spend hours on setting up his computer and getting peripherials to work. I expect my laptop to work out of the box. And I really do hate unexpected behaviour. Mac OS has convinced me as a desktop/laptop operating system.

And what about the hardware? Well, it is at least as convincing as the OS! Of course, you can get the same piece of hardware cheaper, if you only look at the technical data:

• Intel Core2Duo 2×2.4 GHz
• 2 GB RAM
• 200 GB SATA HDD Fujitsu connected to Intel ICH8
• Broadcom WLAN, Ethernet (1Gbit), Bluetooth 2.1
• 15.4″ Widescreen TFT (1440×900px)
• DL-DVD/CD burner
• Firewire 400, Firewire 800
• 2x USB 2.0
• Audio in/out
• DVI connector

That’s certainly a rock-solid equipment, but nothing which justifies a price of £1,299. To be honest, technical data is only one part of the story. A good laptop is more than a collection of good components. And this is why a MacBook Pro is better than most other laptops:

• Battery lifetime: using office applications and terminal windows, I can run the MacBook Pro for more than 5 hours without power supply!
• Trackpad: it is precise and huge enough; together with the two finger scrolling and zooming functionality I hardly ever need a mouse
• Magnetic power plug: Did you ever pull the power cable incidentally? Don’t worry, because the magnetic plug is safe
• Air flow: There’s no risk of over-heating the laptop when putting it on a soft surface, because the air flow cannot be covered
• Robust case
• Great keyboard: except from getting used to Apple’s special keys (which only applies to new Apple users), they keyboard is excellent
• Reasonable sound quality: Compared to other laptops, the speakers are quite ok. Of course it cannot compete with a home stereo
• Excellent display (I use the matt one, because I don’t like makeup mirrors)
• last but not least the aforementioned Mac OS X (“Leopard”)

So, yes the MacBook Pro is expensive. But it is clearly worth its price! After having used it for almost three months, I can say: I love it!