Re: Closest to Debian

["Jason Lim" <maillist@jasonlim.com>]

> OK.  Incidentally you might want to get on the mailing list for
discussing
> IDE RAID.
>
> Send a message to majordomo@lists.math.uh.edu with
> "subscribe linux-ide-arrays" in the body.
>
> When 3ware dropped their IDE RAID everyone on that list hassled them, so
they
> started making them again.  The people on that list seem very happy with
the
> 3ware hardware.  When 3ware dropped it people there were putting in
emergency
> orders for the IDE controllers they would need for the next few years
(so
> they seemed happy to use them even if the company dumped them).

Definately sounds like a mailing list I need to join, especially if I do
use the 3ware cards.

> > (as mentioned earlier in the thread, software RAID yields unacceptable
> > performance when there are problems, so for now we'll be going with
the
>
> Use the latest version of LILO, put the LILO boot sector on the start of
the
> RAID device for /boot (NB this means you can't use XFS for the file
system
> that contains /boot), and install a debian-mbr on both disks.  Then if
the
> first disk dies you should be able to just swap the disks and have it
> bootable again!

Unfortunately, if this happens at 3am in the morning, no one wants to go
and manually swap the disk caddies (thats the name for the part that holds
the disk, right?). If we go the hardware route, this *should* not be
required as the hardware *should* handle that transparently. Or so I hear.
I will go ask the raid pros on the RAID mailing list and see what they
think.

> > Hope our clients (your's too) know the trouble us sysadmins go through
;-)
>
> Yes, my client knows about this well.  They do some of the sys-admin
work
> themselves (everything that's not really hard).  When anything related
to
> binary kernel modules gets done I get called, often several times!
>

We have a number of "managed" dedicated servers where we do everything...
those are a real hassle to work all the time, but what you pay is what you
get (for the clients). However, I've never had the courage to do a BOFH
act... have you? ;-)