Here is a better description of the partitions I'm using: sda1 2GB swap sdb2 3GB swap sdc2 3GB swap sdb1 7GB + sdc1 7GB = MD0 (RAID1) mounted as boot and root partition sda3 199GB + sdc2 199GB = MD1 (RAID1) raw space for LVM volume group sdb3 199GB + sdc3 199GB = MD2 (RAID1) raw space for LVM volume group sda4 91GB + sdb4 91GB = MD3 (RAID1) raw space for LVM volume group