Re: Software RAID w/ mdadm -- Need Partitions?

[Mike Bird <mgb-debian@yosemite.net>]

On Wed February 25 2009 13:54:24 Hal Vaughan wrote:
> I've created RAIDs in the past where I just used the entire drive and
> ones where I created a single partition on the drives and used the
> partition.  It seems that there is no real difference in behavior.
>
> If I'm planning on using a drive for a RAID, is there any reason I
> should create a single partition spanning the entire drive and using
> that instead of just using the drive in its entirety for the RAID?

I tend to split drives into multiple partitions even if I'm planning
on using most or all the space for one purpose.  It gives flexibility
down the road if you ever need to reorganize.  Usually I make each
pair of partitions into a RAID-1 which becomes a LVM physical volume.

For example, I've had a sudden need for extra space and simply converted
one pair of partitions from RAID-1 to RAID-0 and put the least important
data there until extra drives could be added.

--Mike Bird