> Hi all, > > I am a newbie in unix cluster as well as debian. My lab has a cluster. > The main server has RAID. There are 8 disks. The control card has a > bios. When it boots, I have an option to build a raid array (volume, > RAID0 (stripe), RAID5 or RAID10(stripes of mirror)). However, some of > these options (RAID5 and RAID10) were not regconized by Debian sarge > kernel (I think the kernel version is 2.6.9-k8). I got an image CD > build on Feb, 2005 for AMD64. Furthermore, Debian sees it as a single > SCSI. If at boot I build more than a single array, Debian would see > defferently. Since I am a newbie, I would like to have your opinions. > Should I do one of the following and which one is the best option? > The idea of hardware RAID - that is the one that is configured using the BIOS - that the operating system does not see anything but a single disk, everything else is managed by the hardware itself!
> 1) Install Debian and let Debian kernel control the raid on all 8 disks. > 2) At boot, using software make 4 arrays, then install debian and let > debian make an raid arrays from 4 scsi "disks" > If you got such a great controller, you should prefer the hardware-only solution. Actually I haven't got any idea why one would use software RAID in such a case. > If you have better idea, I would really appreciate your telling me. A > concrete example would be great. > Well, the question is - what is most important? Speed or security? How much diskspace is required? Using RAID 5 could provide the space of 7 disks, RAID10 would only provide the space of 4 disks. Regards, Michael