On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 8:19 AM, Gary Dale <garyd...@rogers.com> wrote: > Easiest way is to implement software RAID on your current server. > - add 2 (or more) new drives partitioned identically to your current drive > (unless you want to replace your existing drive) > - partition type is fd (RAID) > - create RAID 5 arrays using the new drives & partitions (except for /boot > which should be on a RAID 1 array) > - common setup is (but use whatever partition setup you currently have): > - /boot --> RAID 1 > - / --> 20G RAID 5 > - /home --> rest of space > - tell mdadm that 1 drive is missing from each array > - copy the files from each partition on your current drive to the RAID > partitions on the new array > - update grub to use the new RAID arrays > - reboot into new array > - if it works, add your original drive (or its replacement) into the RAID > array(s) > > Needless to say, back up everything before starting. Creating a RAID array > is safe but mistakes happen and hardware fails. > > Benefit of RAID over NAS is > - don't need to change client setups > - can be expanded by adding new drives into array > - speed on reads > - protection against hard drive failure > > Google Linux RAID setup for detailed howtos. >
That is pretty much what I do. In the spring of 2008 I was adding 4 TB+ raid 5 dual core servers (using 750GB drives) with 4 or 8GB of RAM for under $2000 US. Now you can easily get a quad core with 7 or 8TB for the same price.. I highly recommend linux software raid (unlike windows software raid which is horribly broken performance wise) linux software raid performs well. These 4.X TB raid 5 machines I bought in 2008 write at over 200 MB/s and read at 300MB/s and they do this at less than 8 % CPU usage on a single core. John -- To unsubscribe from this list go to the following URL and read the instructions: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/options/samba