Re: Install and RAID
On Saturday 20 January 2001 06:07, Daniel Stone wrote:
> On 20 Jan 2001 15:17:15 +1100, Russell Coker wrote:
> > So the question is, is it worth still allowing installation to non-RAID
> > partitions?
>
> Yes, for reasons I'll explain below.
> * Pain in the arse to set up.
Unless it's automatic.
Even manually setting up RAID isn't too hard, unless your install does
non-RAID and you have to convert a root file system to RAID.
> * Buggy kernel drivers.
Not in 2.4.0.
> * Doesn't work with ReiserFS.
2.4.0 RAID works with ReiserFS. AFAIK all the problems have been solved.
> * Speed
In what way is a degraded RAID-1 mirror slower than a single partition? One
of the people who writes the kernel code tells me that the only difference is
in calculating the offsets, and that isn't going to be measurable.
> > A RAID partition is the same as a regular partition apart from having a
> > small amount (less than 100K) of disk space reserved at the end.
>
> ... and about 60 seconds ;)
How?
> > In this scheme if the user sets partitions as type 0xFD then it will
> > install as RAID and start RAID at every boot.
> >
> > If the user sets partitions as other types then it would install as RAID
> > but put the raw devices into /etc/fstab. So the RAID driver would not be
> > used at boot, but this could easily be changed without requiring a
> > rebuild.
>
> I think it's utterly stupid not supporting non-RAID partitions in
> install. Doubly so when there are people out there (like me) with
> everything but /boot on ReiserFS (and that's next).
One major advantage of what I suggested is the following situation (which
happens often):
1) Someone with minimal knowledge gets an install CD and installs a system.
2) Someone else adds some server programs and it becomes an important server.
3) I get called in to make the machine a serious server but I aren't allowed
to re-install.
If what I propose is done then adding RAID to such a setup will be trivial.
--
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