[OT] Software RAID Rumours

[Lucas J Barbuto <lucas@stabat.com>]

Hi All,

Somewhat off-topic, but I just need a little advice.  I have read the
Linux Software-RAID HOWTO and the Multi-Disk HOWTO and I've successfully
(in the past) installed RAID 1 systems with boot, root and swap on RAID.
Now I have a slightly different situation that I haven't been able to
find the answers to on the web.

    [1] My new server came with two Serial ATA drives.  I assume there
    is no difference between accessing Serial vs Parallel IDE drives,
    but the drives are detected as secondary master and slave.  From the
    Software RAID HOWTO: "It is very important, that you only use one
    IDE disk per IDE bus. Not only would two disks ruin the performance,
    but the failure of a disk often guarantees the failure of the bus,
    and therefore the failure of all disks on that bus." --- Does this
    apply to Serial ATA (I assume so)?  Is there anything I can do about
    this?  In the past I've RAIDed across Primary and Secondary IDE
    Masters, but this isn't an option with this board, It's only got two
    Serial ATA connectors on the Mainboard.

    [2] I have read (somewhere, can't seem to find the article again)
    that using EXT3 with Software RAID gives terrible performance.  Can
    anyone recommend the best file system to use?  I'm really looking
    for high availability first, speed second.  I've seen EXT2
    performing really well in some recent benchmarks, but isn't
    journaling useful?

Thanks in advance,

Lucas