Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2489 mails)

["David C. Rankin" <drankinatty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tero Pesonen wrote:
> Hi all!
< really big snip >
> Thanks for all comments! 
>
> Regards,
> Tero Pesonen

Tero,

        Sorry for the late post. Software RAID is great. I have 6 openSuSE boxes
spinning RAID1 right now and all are 'software' raid. (2 pure software RAID --
'md raid'; 4 fake RAID [BIOS RAID] -- 'dm raid')(5 using SATA, 1 using ATA)

        It is definitely the way to go. With 500G SATA II 300 M/sec drives 
going for
$50 now days, there is no reason not to set up a RAID for the added level of
redundancy it provides. Just remember RAID does *not* replace backups.

        There is no trick to setting up with raid. It sounds like you are going 
to do
a fresh install, so just put your drives in the computer, put the install DVD
in the drive and start the install as normal. When Yast proposes a partitioning
scheme, do the following:

(1) choose expert settings;

(2) delete all the partitions that yast proposed;

(3) on each of the discs you want to mirror, create the partitions and pick the
option "[ ] Do Not Format" and set the filesystem type to "Linux RAID". Do this
on all mirrored partitions;

(4) next choose the RAID button and Create. Yast will then show a list of all
the partitions that you have created;

(5) next choose Add, and pick a partition from each drive that you will mirror
one at a time. When you choose add after selecting a partition you will then
assign the filesystem type 'Ext3, etc.' and the mount point. You will also
notice that the first pair of partitions selected will be designated /md0. Go
through the same steps here twice before moving on, for example once for /boot
on sdc5 and once for /boot on sdd5. Now when you look at the screen full of
partitions you will have /md0 up top and, continuing with the example, /boot to
the right of sdc5 and to the right of sdd5;

(6) click finish and goto step (4) for each additional raid set you want to
create. You will see the subsequent sets designated as /md1, /md2, etc..; and

(7) When you're done, just say OK or confirm like you normally would in the
partitioner and move on to software selection.

    The same process applies to adding new drives and raid sets to an existing
install. When it is time for the first boot, everything should work fine.
However if it fails to boot and you get a grub error like GRUB ERROR 17, just
remember *DO NOT PANIC*. It is usually something simple like a grub menu.lst
entry, or for some reason, you may need to do a grub-install /dev/(proper
device). On the 6 installs I currently have, probably installed the raid setups
10 times. Out of the ten, I have had boot failures probably 3-4 times that took
adjustments.

        Also, if you are using the BIOS raid, search through the BIOS setting 
any make
sure the /boot or / (if you have no /boot) arrays are *bootable*. The setting
can be hard to find sometimes, but if you have problems, double-check this.

        Do not worry about the 24/7 running of drives. Drives commonly have 
about
700,000 hours MTBF. That's 79.9 years. My experience has been that drives
either fail in the first week, or they last a long time. I had one old IBM
Deskstar 40G drive that ran for 7 years 24/7 (it still runs, but I don't use
it). During those 7 years I know didn't boot the machine any more that 15
times. (setup, kernel updates and physically moving the box from one office to
the next was the only time it ever got rebooted)

        Good luck, if you get stuck -- write back.


-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.      |          openSoftware und SystemEntwicklung
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC           |             Countdown for openSuSE 11.1
www.rankinlawfirm.com           |        http://counter.opensuse.org/11.1/small
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