> I am using a Gigabyte GA7DXR board with an onboard raid controller Ultra > 100 from Promise. Now I would like to connect some old 15 GB disks to > this controller. 2 or 4 disks are possible. On the raid I would like to > have a mysql database with around 5 GB. The system should operate under > linux 2.4. The board is able to run Raid level 0 with 4 or 2 disks and > raid level 1 with 2 disks.
First make sure that your IDE-raid works reliably. I've had problems with ide-raid under linux in the past. Things may have changed now, but seriously....do a thorough filesystem strain test. > It won't be a big problem if the system crashes after a few month. In > general my harddisks were running over years without Raid. > > Is it better to take Raid level 1 or 0 ? > If raid level 0, should I use 2 or 4 disks ? > Are both raid-levels running stable in the daily usage ? > Is the performance an really important point to choose a special raid > level ? > Should I use ext2, ext3 or an other filesystem ? RAID 0 is won't give you much. If you have (2) 15 GB disk, you will now have a 30 GB disk slightly faster with striping, but you won't notice the difference with ide-disks. RAID 1 is mirroring. It's expensive because for every 15 GB disk you have, you must have another 15 GB disk to mirror it (you can use a smaller disk, say 10 GB, but your capacity will be 10 GB). You could use RAID 10. It's a hybrid of RAID 0 and RAID 1. Let's say you have (4) 15 GB disks. You could use concatenate the first two (RAID 0) to make a 30 GB, concatenate the other two to make another 30 GB, then you mirror the first 30GB to the second 30GB. This setup _requires_ a minimum of 4 disks. It's the most expensive, but it offeres the best speed and reliabilty in case of a failure. If one disk fails, just replace the disk and your RAID controller should automatically do its business in the background while your database is chugging away. Whereas RAID-5 you would have to wait _forever_ for the array to be reconstructed. RAID 10 probably won't be a specific option for your RAID controller, it will just be called RAID-1 with striping or something like that. As for a filesystem. I wouldn't recommend ext2 or ext3 at all. I would _highly_ recommend a journaling filesystem such as Reiserfs (http://www.namesys.com) or XFS (http://oss.sgi.com). I've used reiserfs for a long time, but XFS is growing on me. It seems to be more stable in latest 2.4 kernels. Cheers, Andrew Crum [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
