Re: RAID Questions
On Tue, 06 Jul 2010 10:16:17 -0500, Kent West wrote:
> I am a RAID newb.
(...)
> In short, I have no idea what I'm doing, or how to do it.
First, hardware raid and software raid are two different worlds
(involving different management techniques and performance). There is
still a third raid type ("fake-raid") which I would avoid as much as
possible (this involves using a firmware and "dm" raid setup under OS).
Second, are you sure you need a raid setup? :-)
If so, and being newbie, I would go for a hardware raid controller (easy
to setup). If not possible, then I should try software raid (linux "md")
but this requires a bit more time to get used to. I would test first on a
test environment because while playing with hard disks you can easily
lose your data.
> Should I use RAID at all, or should I use some other cloning technique,
> perhaps dd or rsync from a periodic cron job? (I was able to
> successfully install/boot a complete Stable system with RAID off in the
> firmware BIOS, installing onto the first drive like it was the only
> drive in the system.)
You should use (regarding raided or not) a good backup strategy :-)
> If I use RAID, do I set the Intel Rapid Storage Technology BIOS options
> to RAID1, RECOVERY, or no RAID?
I would not go that way (Intel raid tends to be "fake-raid") :-/
> How do I get around the problems I'm seeing in the Debian paritioner (no
> bootable flag, can't create multiple partitions or partitions are empty
> after install)?
If you want to use pure software raid (linux raid), there is no need to
setup nothing in the BIOS. Just tell the partitioner you ant to setup a
raid1 level between the 2 disks.
Debian Installation Guide will tell you about this:
6.3.2.3. Configuring Multidisk Devices (Software RAID)
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch06s03.html.en#di-partition
Greetings,
--
Camaleón
Reply to: