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Raid in Linux


nlinecomputers

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nlinecomputers

Hi,I been using and even selling Linux for about 8 months now but I've never setup a server using any kind of RAID.What is everyone's thoughts on it? Should I go hardware or should I go software? I would like to setup IDE raid as it is cheap compared to SCSI. SATA IDE would also be cool but I bet that isn't supported by anyone yet.Opinions?

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Well, funny you should ask. I just completed a Red Hat Linux 8.0 build on one of my old machines that had a Promise FastTrack 100TX2 controller and two 40GB IBM drives. Here are the documents that I read in preparation:Linux RAID How-ToAnd I downloaded the Promise driver from Intel and followed the ReadMe file from this version rather than the one from Promise's web site. I tried the latter first and it failed, but the Intel one worked perfectly. This setup is configured as a 1X2 RAID1 mirror and has been up for almost two weeks running Apache 2.0.45, MySQL 3.23.56 and PHP 4.3.1.The best way to do this is to first setup the mirror using the Promise BIOS setup (assuming you have a Promise controller), then boot from the first Red Hat CD. At the boot prompt, type "Linux expert" without the quotes and use F2 to select the Promise driver from a floppy disk. Then carry on with the install. When you partition, you will see your mirrored array as one disk. If you don't, then the driver was not installed properly.Hope this helps. B)

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nlinecomputers
Well, funny you should ask. I just completed a Red Hat Linux 8.0 build on one of my old machines that had a Promise FastTrack 100TX2 controller and two 40GB IBM drives.
Hey Peachy, I was hopeing you would chime in. :)Have you tested the mirror? What kind of speed performance are you getting? Is it possible to use IDE for RAID 5 or (assuming you can) will sharing the same IDE channels hurt performance too much?Thanks for the link I'll look into it.
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I haven't tested the setup benchmark-wise since I've not found any Linux versions of my usual Windows benchmarking tools. However, since this box is setup to multiboot XP, Win98, and Linux, I will try some copying and writing tests of some large files. But since this is a mirror, there won't be much in the way of performance improvement over a disk stripe array.You can do RAID5 with IDE if you use a high end RAID controller like Adaptec's or Escalade or the Promise SX4000. Ideally, you want each drive to be on separate controllers. My TX2 has two channels that can support master/slave configure drives in RAID 0, 0+1, 1+0, 1 or JBOD.

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