Re: hot-change disk arrays...can I do it on Linux?
Pete Templin <templin@bucknell.edu> writes:
> Hot-swap drives: this is a functionality of the drives, right? I'd
> have to have disk drives that were manufactured to stand up to that,
> correct?
The hardware (and maybe the software too) must support hot-swap.
> Assuming that I have a hot-swap disk in my machine and a spare disk on
> my shelf, and that I was not using RAID or anything special on that
> disk, would I need a special controller or customizations to the OS to
> use it (i.e. be able to take out the failed drive and stick in the new
> (formatted) drive)? Is hot-swap only for RAID arrays?
Hot-swap is most useful when the missing data that was located on the
failed disk can be auto-regenerated, either from a mirror disk or using
a parity disk.
> Hardware RAID: Hardware RAID is independent of the operating system,
> right? Aside from software to control/tweak the array parameters, I
> need only to have "driver" support for the controller, right?
Ideally, yes, although the OS could possibly need to control some
functions. It depends on the hardware.
> Hot-growth arrays: Our NT servers have the ability to add a disk to the
> RAID array live on the fly. All the administrator has to do is tell the
> controller to add the new disk to the array and BINGO! bigger array. Is
> that a functionality of the controller? What other parts of the computing
> system need to be modified to support that (i.e. can I do that with my
> Debian systems)?
The filesystem needs to be expanded. I believe Theodore Ts'o is working
on writing (or is planning to write) a filesystem expansion program for
ext2.
Dan
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