Re: hot-change disk arrays...can I do it on Linux?
The drives themselves are not any different. The hot swap trays have
the functionality to power the drives down before removal or up after
insertion. Such trays and drives could be used with the md utilities
under Linux to provide striped (raid 0), mirrored (raid 1), or striped
and mirrored arrays. Raid 5 (striped, with parity) isn't supported.
Although hardware raid is independent of the operating system, they
usually include operating system specific utilities for configuring
and monitoring the arrays. Without these utilities, it is hard, if
not impossible, to format a new array, replace a failed drive, etc.
--Brian
Pete Templin wrote:
>
> Disk array question: Our computer center here has several NT servers with
> RAID5 disk arrays (4x4GB disks, so 12GB useable). I'm curious about some
> implementation questions regarding RAID arrays. I'll try to separate my
> questions, so that informed people can set me straight on each of the
> issues.
>
> 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?
> 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?
>
> 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?
>
> 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)?
>
> Thanks for the help. I'm soon embarking on a development project from the
> ground up for a local computer store and want to plan things right from
> the beginning.
>
> Pete
>
> --
> Peter J. Templin, Jr. Client Services Analyst
> Computer & Communication Services tel: (717) 524-1590
> Bucknell University templin@bucknell.edu
>
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