[ale] Disk Mirroring / Raid

[Jim Kinney]

I just did this almost exact thing. 

I used a 3 drive system, 1 to boot with and store the system, the the
other two as a raid1 mirror. It's not hard at all. If your using IDE, DO
NOT PUT THE MIRROR DRIVES AS MASTER/SLAVE. Use seperate controllers. It
will really slow down your system otherwise. My mirrors are hdb and hdc,
boot is hda.

You will need to get raidtools, and the raid kernel patch. After you apply
the patch, ( I used kernel 2.2.11, latest version with matching patch).
Raidtools came with my RH6.0. Compile with raid1, reboot with new kernel.

fdisk the mirror drives to put in partitions. Use regular type 83 (Linux).
Save.

Now read the man file pages for mkraid, raidtab. Setup your /etc/raidtab
file

       raiddev /dev/md0
           raid-level                1
           nr-raid-disks             2
           nr-spare-disks            0
           device                    /dev/hda1
           raid-disk                 0
           device                    /dev/hdb1
           raid-disk                 1

This will make a raid1 mirror with hda1 and hdb1 and no spare disks. the
array will be known as /dev/md0.

run mkraid. Then mke2fs /dev/md0. Mount it where you want it. Pat yourself
on the back. Go buy a new case fan. The new 7200 rpm IDE's are _hot_.

On Mon, 13 Sep 1999, Gary S. Mackay wrote:

> 
> How difficult is it to setup standard disk mirroring in linux? I have an
> opportunity (client!) to replace an OLD Sparc box with a *Nix solution. I
> recommened a linux server with dual 9.1gig 7200 rpm drives. When I have to put
> in NT, this is what I use and then mirror them. (Don't start a thread on how
> bad NT mirroring is, believe me, I know). I would like to mirror these also,
> maybe even Raid-5 if I can get the client to spring for it. 
> 
> Problem: I've never setup mirroring nor Raid in linux before. Is this
> something I should be able to pick up quickly, or is this a real head-banger
> for the first time out?
> 
> - Gary
> 
> 
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