Hi, I would like to set up a Debian box running Sarge, to include a storage array using raid5 with boot off a separate system disk.
I have read the software raid howto and he says to use "mdadm" because it is newer, more unified, (levitates, leaps over a building in a single bound), but then seems to be describe how to do it by setting up the file /etc/raidtab and running mkraid /dev/md0 which seems to be the raidtools2 method of doing it. For instance the man page for mdadm says it does not use /etc/raidtab and instead uses mdadm.conf. But the man page of mdadm says that this /etc/mdadm.conf is not written initially - instead it is to be generated AFTER you make the array. Well how do you do that using mdadm. It isnt clear to me. mdadm command man page has a lot of description of different command line options to mdadm, but it seems to me to be risky to use a tool that tells you on the man page that if you run mdadm --create , it will create a degraded array with an extra spare drive, unless you override with the -I --force option. (If I wanted an extra spare drive, I would have rather specified it myself on the line... I don't want one). More alarmingly, I dont see a -I switch listed as a switch in the man page... what does it do??????????????? So how does one use mdadm, is there a good howto? Is it not really better than swiss cheese? Should i use good old raidtools2? Also now I have loaded the raid5 module loaded into my kernel (modprobe raid5). Now I run mknod /dev/md0 b 9 0 then i did mkraid /dev/md0 and it has begun. Any thoughts? Mitchell -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]