[nflug] RAID

Eric #4011 eric at bootz.us
Mon Feb 11 12:09:42 EST 2008


Ok, decided

/boot                  RAID1   3 active and 1 spare  -1GB
/SWAP               RAID1  3 active and 1 spare   -2GB
/                         RAID5  3 active and 1 spare   -MAX

then made / RAID 5 and LVM volume group





Eric #4011 wrote:
> I really like the RAID 0+1 idea but I'm not sure how to do it with 
> Linux software RAID, do I need to create two RAID 0's and then combine 
> them with a nested RAID 1 to achieve RAID 0+1.  I will consider RAID 5 
> as suggested.
>
>
> Corey Reichle wrote:
>> You need to consider this:  RAID0 is the best performance wise, but 
>> at the risk of a single drive going will bring down the array.
>>
>> RAID1 will get you some fault tolerance, but it takes a hit since two 
>> physical writes for every logical write.  The only way to circumvent 
>> much of the performance loss is separate controllers.
>>
>> I would suggest RAID5.  Best performance gain for fault tolerance, as 
>> well as increased performance over a RAID0 with the right controllers.
>>
>> ====================
>> From: Eric #4011 <eric at bootz.us>
>> Date: 2008/02/11 Mon AM 07:01:46 CST
>> To: nflug at nflug.org
>> Subject: Re: [nflug] RAID
>>
>> Great, I'll use Raid Software then.
>>
>> Space isn't a problem each drive is 160GB and it's just a small email 
>> server of about 100 people, so raid 0 or 1 would be best for 
>> performance?
>> these are also hot swap drives does a certain raid matter in this 
>> instance?
>>
>> Thank you,
>> Eric
>>
>> Mark Musone wrote:
>>  
>>> I'd probably use software raid over most onboard SATA raid 
>>> controllers..
>>>
>>> You may also want to consider raid-5, since you'll get more usable 
>>> storage
>>> space than raid0-1
>>>
>>> Mark
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: nflug-bounces at nflug.org [mailto:nflug-bounces at nflug.org] On 
>>> Behalf Of
>>> Eric #4011
>>> Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 3:36 PM
>>> To: nflug at nflug.org
>>> Subject: Re: [nflug] RAID
>>>
>>> Yes it does help, and I want to be sure I do this the right way.  
>>> The board is a TYAN Tomcat K8E using a Nvidia RAID controller for 
>>> SATA drives... I have heard that the onboard RAID controllers are 
>>> not that great, however which is better poison the Linux RAID 
>>> software or the onboard RAID controller?
>>>
>>> Rob Dege wrote:
>>>      
>>>> It's been a while since I've spoken in RAID, but I think your 
>>>> terminology is off.  RAID-0 by default requires at least two hard 
>>>> drives in order to configure.  The same goes for RAID 1.
>>>>
>>>> So, in this instance, you will use two drives to create a RAID-0 
>>>> array.  This array now appears as a single drive.  You then create 
>>>> another RAID-0 array using the other two disks.  This array now 
>>>> appears as a single drive.  So now, you have two RAID0 arrays 
>>>> independent of each other.  Finally, you create a RAID-1 mirroring 
>>>> array, using the two RAID-0 disks that you just created.
>>>>
>>>> Thus, you now have a single drive, with the capacity of two 
>>>> drives.  If this is all handled within the RAID controller, linux 
>>>> will only acknowledge the existence of this RAID-0+1 drive as a 
>>>> single disk.  So you won't be able to use the linux software RAID 
>>>> to create another layer of mirroring.
>>>>
>>>> Of course, this is assuming that your RAID controller is doing all 
>>>> of the array structure and work.  Most of the onboard RAID 
>>>> controllers in today's motherboards, and built shoddy.  Their 
>>>> contain the cheap hardware, but you need to install software to 
>>>> configure/access the onboard controller.
>>>>
>>>> Plus, it's been a while, but I do recall some warning about not 
>>>> putting either the root directory or the /boot directory on a 
>>>> raid.  It has something to do about the module needed by the kernel 
>>>> to identify the raid drive being stored on the raid drive or 
>>>> something like that.
>>>>
>>>> oh well, hope this helps somewhat.
>>>>
>>>> -Rob
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Feb 8, 2008 12:49 PM, Eric #4011 <eric at bootz.us 
>>>> <mailto:eric at bootz.us>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     Hi, I was wondering if the following RAID configuration is 
>>>> possible?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     I have 4 SATA drives for RAID and am using MediaShield utility to
>>>>     configure a RAID 0+1
>>>>
>>>>           
>>> **************************************************************************** 
>>>
>>> *******************
>>>      
>>>>     MediaShield States RAID 0+1 is:
>>>>             RAID 0 drives can be mirrored using RAID 1 techniques,
>>>>     resulting in a RAID 0+1 solution
>>>>             for improved performance plus resiliency
>>>>             The controller combines the performance of data 
>>>> striping (RAID
>>>>     0) and the fault tolerance
>>>>             of disk mirroring (RAID 1). Data is striped across 
>>>> multiple
>>>>     drives and duplicated on
>>>>             another set of drives.
>>>>
>>>>           
>>> **************************************************************************** 
>>>
>>> *******************
>>>      
>>>>     After this I have two drives and I am ready to install
>>>>     linux(debian etch)
>>>>
>>>>     My thoughts are if I also use RAID 1 software(linux) with the 
>>>> existing
>>>>     two drives I will have one hard drive writing to three hard 
>>>> drives?
>>>>
>>>>     I'm wondering if this is possible?
>>>>
>>>>     Thank you in advance for your explanations
>>>>
>>>>     Thank you,
>>>>     Eric
>>>>     _______________________________________________
>>>>     nflug mailing list
>>>>     nflug at nflug.org <mailto:nflug at nflug.org>
>>>>     http://www.nflug.org/mailman/listinfo/nflug
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>> -Rob
>>>>
>>>> Ben Franklin Quote: "They that can give up essential liberty to 
>>>> obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>>>>
>>>>
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