On Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 02:55:41PM -0500, Patrick Zaloum wrote: > Hello! > I am planning on installing a new Etch server. What I would like is to > use 3xSATA2 disks to create a RAID5 array. During the install I know I > can create md RAID devices from the partition tables I set up > identically on the 3 disks, but is there a more attractive way to set > up the array so that the system is fully RAID5 instead of 6 or 7 RAID5 > devices over 3 SATA disks?
What do you mean 6 or 7 raid5 devices over three disks? This doesn't make sense to me. But first, it's a *bad* idea to put your whole system on raid5 because if the array goes down, your screwed. At least put / and critical parts of the fs (bin, sbin, root, etc, and so forth) on raid1. Then if the thing tanks you can at least boot off any one of the three disks. Carve out a smallish (couple gigs up to maybe 10gigs) at the front of each disk and put those together in raid1, then use the remaining portion of each disk as raid5. > > I investigated using motherboards with onboard "software" RAID > chipsets, but am worried about compatibility issues. Googling gave me > the dmraid package that should be compatible with the "Intel(R) Matrix > Storage Technology".. (ICH8R) but I don't know if I can use this > "pre-install" so that it works almost as a true hardware RAID. again I'm confused and it all sounds a little fishy to me. Much better in my opinion to go straight software raid and leave the hardware out of it. If the mobo dies you can drag the disks over to another mobo with potentially different chipsets and it should more or less just work. With hardware raid, or some mysterious amalgam, you may be stuck. very much just .02 A
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