Linux Hardware RAID Configuration

[Darrin Chandler]

Jeff Garland wrote:

> I'm in the process of setting up a new linux machine and I'd like to 
> use hardware RAID.  Since I never setup RAID before I'm a bit unsure 
> how to approach the setup.  After googling and reading a bunch of 
> things...well, I'm still lost in the maze of info and unsure how the 
> hardware/software setup interact.
>
> Ok, for the details.  I have an ABIT AN8 (has an on-board RAID 
> controller) and a couple SATA drives.  I was planning on just using a 
> mirroring setup as I'm most interested in ensuring reliability.  I've 
> setup the bios for mirroring. When I boot into Ubuntu to do the disk 
> setup, it wants me to format both disk devices in the disk setup. But 
> really, this isn't correct, is it?  If the RAID bios settings are 
> correct, shouldn't I just format a single raid device and the 
> controller will write to both disks?  Of course, I can also see that 
> the OS might need to know about both disks so that if there is a disk 
> failure it can provide admin functions.
>
> Any pointers to useful howtos or suggestions appreciated.


If it's *really* hardware raid then you'd only see 1 disk. You can only 
see the disk at all through the controller, after all. So the controller 
isn't taking over at that level. You may have one of the SATA 
hardware/software combo raid systems that have been going around (I have 
one). If your OS doesn't support it then you can't use it as raid. I'm 
not at all sure of Ubuntu. I know there are drivers and stuff for it for 
Linux, but I don't have any details. I believe the guys at Linux 
Certified will ship that way as an option. Wish I had more to tell you.

-- 
Darrin Chandler            |  Phoenix BSD Users Group
dwchandler at stilyagin.com   |  http://bsd.phoenix.az.us/
http://www.stilyagin.com/  |