Re: Installing Debian + RAID
On Thu, Aug 23, 2001 at 12:49:09PM +0200, daniel.weller@orf.at wrote:
> My question is whether it would be possible to install Debian onto a
> software RAID
No, you can't _install_ Debian directly onto software RAID because
the installation disks don't support it. You can, however, install a
Debian system and then turn the disks into a RAID 1-or-higher.
> and how that would work.
See the Software-RAID-HOWTO.
> I thought of creating a small ext2 partition mounted as /boot and then
> having one linear RAID mounted as / - would this be a good idea?
No. The problem with linear arrays (and even more so with vanilla
striping) is that a failure on any single disk may cause you to lose
access to all disks. Linear seems pretty pointless to me anyhow, as
it tends to fill one disk, then go on to the net, typically resulting
in worse performance than using the disks independently. Striping
solves this, but at the price that a single disk failure is
practically guaranteed to hose the entire array.
> I've never
> had any harddisk crashes, that's why I think that using a linear RAID
> wouldn't be too much of a problem...but how do I create it prior to
> installing Debian?
With substantial difficulty, since the install kernel doesn't include
RAID support.
> Is this possible?
Possible, but, again, very difficult. Unless you use a RAID-enabled
kernel during installation, it is not possible to set up a 100%
linear RAID or RAID 0 (striped) system. (Well, OK, I suppose you
might be able to set up your system and then copy it over from plain
disk to RAID, just like you would with a RAID 1-or-higher setup, but
it doesn't seem like it would work as readily.)
> How would I do it without turning my computer into a huge
> paperweight?
If you do it, IMO, you're asking for a paperweight. Either set
things up as JBOD, like someone else suggested, or split off a chunk
from each disk that's as big as the smallest one and set those up as
a RAID 1 or 5 with the remaining space used as JBOD.
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