Software RAID1

[Brian Fahrlander]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Damien Hull wrote:
> Here's what I have:
> 
>     * Edubuntu 7.04 with updates
>     * Intel motherboard
>     * Two SATA drives of the same size
>     * SWAP is not on RIAD
>           o Each drive has a swap partition
>     * Software RAID1
>           o /
>           o /home
> 
> GRUB questions:
> 
>    1. How do I install GRUB on sdb?
>    2. How do I configure grub to boot even if one drive is missing or
>       not working?
>          1. Example: sda goes bad. Need to boot from sdb
> 
> 
> SWAP questions:
> 
>     I'm not sure how this works but I read somewhere that swap should
>     not be on a RAID partition. Some edititing of /etc/fstab needs to be
>     done. Can someone tell me what goes in there?
> 
> Here's what should happen:
> 
>    1. If a drive fails the system should continue to run
>    2. If the system is rebooted the good drive should boot
> 
> This is assuming that everything is configured correctly.

    Let me answer this not in a micro way; I haven't tried recent-model
RAID cards or managed to do a fresh install of Ubuntu that allows me to
create a RAID drive at install. (Though Redhat does that. Ssh.)

    In a general sense, I've had a good deal of experience.

    Put your data on RAID; /home and maybe a shared parition called
/shares, for example.  The reason for this is that your data is the
object: it's why people show up to work. That's the area that people are
actually counting on.  Plus, when it's time for an upgrade, just mount
/home onto the freshly-installed root filesystem and you're back in the
race. (And most high-quality drives should live until the next version
of the OS will be released.)

    RAID drives, both software and hardware are faster for reading, and
they tend to speed up a system.  And Linux software RAID has never
failed me since about 1995; it's solid.  And for small applications it
might make more sense than hardware, since hardware raid tends to
require software to restore it in the distant future when things go
south.  I've had two cards fail, and both times the new OS didn't
support the card...infuriating.

    In a perfect world, I'd stick the root and /home onto two huge
whopping RAID drives, but the inability to do it at install time has
always held me back...but surely it won't be long- our developers are
fabulous!

- --
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Brian Fahrländer                 Christian, Conservative, and Technomad
 Evansville, IN                              http://Fahrlander.net/brian
 ICQ: 5119262                         AOL/Yahoo/GoogleTalk: WheelDweller
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFGxekr6PLtRzZbdhYRAjdwAJ4sJ0xUmuTtyeuszN0II4YRJ643OwCdFU1/
liKBDhyaxXaRAs7WMjevbu8=
=F4AN
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----