> I am planning on building a small SCSI RAID array (using software RAID)
> for my home Linux server. Suppose I have 4 of the same drive (perhaps
> 4GB drives). What happens in a year or two when one of the drives fails
> and I am unable to find a matching replacement?
Linux software raid is partition based, so you don't have to lose that
space. When you sub in the 9gig for the 4gig, just make one partition the
same size as all the other disks, and another partition that will hold the
~5gigs. Of course, this 5gigs isn't included in the array.
If you're worried about having an exact replacement and that 4gig drives may
not be that available in a couple of years, the typical answer would be to
buy an extra one now. That doesn't make much sense in a home situation
though, as buying an extra 4gig drive now would probably cost more than
buying that new 35gig drive or whatever a couple of years from now.
Tom
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