[mythtv-users] Is there a distributed filesystem available?

[Ross Campbell]

On 6/19/06, davatar at comcast.net <davatar at comcast.net> wrote:
> Every FS I know of under linux needs to have RAID so it doesn't lose the entire
> filesystem with a disk failure. I want to run a filesystem that may lose some data
> from losing one disk but does not lose _all_ data.

What you're essentially asking for is a distributed filesystem, except
you want to run it only on each local drive with no RAID.
Traditionally, a distributed filesystem would use local storage on
multiple *NODES*, not multiple *VOLUMES* on a single node, but it's
still an interesting idea.

This approach would be very flexible for adding/removing storage since
most mythtv systems aren't really enterprise class servers capable of
hot-adding drives. It could provide "raid-like" functionality without
any requirements on disk geometry, size, type.

I believe you'd need at least about 5 fast drives to consider this
option (at which point the question of why not RAID comes up), and I
don't know what the performance hit would be for file I/O.

I think a good distributed filesystem would be a benefit for home
networks where there are many machines without RAID or local backup.
Anything that could protect home users from data loss when a drive or
a system is lost *without* requiring a significant investment in new
hardware could be a good thing. I just wonder if it would end up being
too complex and slow when compared to building a central file server
with RAID.

Maybe Nutch?  - http://wiki.apache.org/nutch/FAQ

-Ross