I have a new server to setup. 4 hard drives and I had intended it to be hardware raid but that's a long story. Does it make sense to set up the first two hard drives with RAID-0 partitions and then get through the install and then go back later and then create identically sized RAID-0 partitions on the other two drives and finally create the RAID-1 mirror from the first to the second? Craig -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
Craig White wrote:> I have a new server to setup. 4 hard drives and I had intended it to be > hardware raid but that's a long story. > > Does it make sense to set up the first two hard drives with RAID-0 > partitions and then get through the install and then go back later and > then create identically sized RAID-0 partitions on the other two drives > and finally create the RAID-1 mirror from the first to the second? >are we to assume that your 'long story' involves this *not* being hardware raid? so you're setting this up with mdraid? or what? if mdraid, I'd probably boot the CD (or PXE) to rescue mode, use fdisk and mdadm to partition and raid the drives as you like, then reboot the CD/PXE into normal install mode, and install onto the md devices you pre-created. oh, and you normally build two mirrors (raid1) then stripe them together (raid0) rather than the other way around.
On Thu, 2009-11-19 at 11:30 -0700, Craig White wrote:> I have a new server to setup. 4 hard drives and I had intended it to be > hardware raid but that's a long story. > > Does it make sense to set up the first two hard drives with RAID-0 > partitions and then get through the install and then go back later and > then create identically sized RAID-0 partitions on the other two drives > and finally create the RAID-1 mirror from the first to the second?I suggest that you consider LVM over RAID 1. Since you have 4 disks, I would make a small RAID 1 on your first two disks ( or if you are using IDE disks, the primary and secondary masters ) to be /boot ( GRUB doesn't work with booting directly from LVM ) and then create one or more RAID 1 devices in the remaining space. You then use the RAID 1 devices as physical volumes in the LVM setup, and create logical volumes however you wish. My own "personal opinion" is that I use one RAID 1 device to support a volume group that I call "sysdisk" and use for "system" filesystems such as /, /var, /tmp, and swap. I use any additional RAID 1 devices in a volume group I call "export" and put all of my data ( home directories, downloaded audio/visual media, ISO images, etc. ) in logical volumes/filesystems there. One of the benefits of LVM is that you can have more than one physical volume ( PV ) in a volume group, which will let you construct logical volumes ( LV ) that are larger than your hard disks. You can also resize LVs/filesystems and do some other useful things. My $0.02 (US) worth.> > Craig > >-- Ron Loftin reloftin at twcny.rr.com "God, root, what is difference ?" Piter from UserFriendly
Craig White wrote:> I have a new server to setup. 4 hard drives and I had intended it to be > hardware raid but that's a long story. > > Does it make sense to set up the first two hard drives with RAID-0 > partitions and then get through the install and then go back later and > then create identically sized RAID-0 partitions on the other two drives > and finally create the RAID-1 mirror from the first to the second? >No. That just makes it so that if you have a failure you won't be able to boot, which kind of defeats the point of having a RAID array. Make your /boot partition a RAID1 partition right off the bat. That is so you can tell GRUB to boot from any of the drives. You can choose RAID10 directly for the rest of your drive with the 5.4 installer. -- Benjamin Franz -- Benjamin Franz