Re: RAID start at boot

[Andrew Reid <reidac@bellatlantic.net>]

> Is there a way to make sure my RAID (level 1) won't be started degraded? On
> boot, one disk is found before the others, and the RAID is started before
> the others are seen. (They are seen at different times because I am
> transitioning from USB to eSATA, and the one eSATA disk is seen before any
> USB disk.) I start my RAID manually anyway (not as part of the boot
> process), so I'd be just as happy if it was never automatically started,
> but I *really* don't want it started with just one disk.

  According to the mdadm.conf man-page, you can specify an array
with the name "<ignore>" in that file (and rebuild the initramfs,
presumably), and this will cause mdadm to never automatically 
assemble the array. 

  You could then presumably assemble it "by hand" specifying 
the name to mdadm -A <whatever> later on.

  I actually checked the man-page because I was *sure* there
was a "--no-degraded" option in there somewhere.  There is such 
an option for the mdadm command, but it's not clear if it can
be gotten in to the boot-time environment or not.


  Also, I second the already-mentioned rootdelay idea -- that's
probably better than "<ignore>", but of course, it's your call.

			-- A.
--
Andrew Reid / reidac@bellatlantic.net