Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (818 mails)

[Istvan Gabor <suseuser04@xxxxxxx>]

2011. szeptember 14. 3:13 napon George OLson <grglsn765@xxxxxxxxx> írta:

> I am about to set up RAID-1 on my system, and I am looking for some 
> experienced opinions.

snip
 
> I have recently purchased a 1TB drive to use as the mirror image, with 
> the intent that the 2nd 500GB on this drive will be used for other 
> purposes, like maybe testing a new installation when it comes out, or 
> just having extra data that I don't need on the mirror image partition. 
> I have installed the 1TB drive and hooked it up. It is not yet partitioned.

I've been using softraid/fakeraid for a while and I am satsified with it.
It saved my data at least two times when one of the disks went wrong.
But I think for fakeraid you need two drives with the same capacity, or maybe
even the same type. I think that you can't use fakeraid with your 1TB and
500 GB disks.

> I have done some research on the internet, and I found some tech sites 
> that said that using the RAID setup in the BIOS is easy to set up, and 
> you can do it without having to reinstall your OS. However, other sites 
> have said that you do have to reinstall your OS, as it will wipe the 
> original drive. (In any case, it would have been easier if I had set up 
> RAID before the initial install, but too late now.)

This is not correct, at least in case of some fakeraid cards/chips, eg SiI 
3114, 
SiI 3512, maybe nvidia nvraid.

> My BIOS setup only has 1 line indicating RAID, in the "IDE setup" menu, 
> where it allows you to configure nVidia RAID as enabled or disabled. The 
> motherboard user guide (it is an ASUS M2N68-AM SE2) doesn't give any 
> other information.

This only enables the fakeraid BIOS showing up at boot.
After turning on the computer a fakeraid BIOS message should
be shown naming the fakeraid type, vesrion number etc and give
information how to enter the fakeraid BIOS (eg press F10).
When you enter the fakeraid BIOS you are able to make the RAID array.
Until this is not done, turning on fakeraid in the computer BIOS will not
affect the disks.

> If I put the RAID setting to enabled, and then on my next subsequent 
> reboot, will the BIOS would run me through a setup utility to setup 
> RAID? If I knew for sure that it wouldn't wipe my original hard drive, I 
> would tend to go that way, as it seems simpler. This website,

Yes, see above, the fakeraid BIOS message will show up and
give info how to enter it.
 
> "http://lifehacker.com/352472/set-up-real+time-bulletproof-backup-drive-redundancy-with-raid";,
>  
> indicated a very simple setup, but that is only 1 guy so I am skeptical 
> if it is really as simple as he makes it out to be.

snip

Google for nvraid and manual for finding info how to set up nvidia raid.
One link I found:
ftp://ftp.tyan.com/manuals/m_NVRAID_Users_Guide_v20.pdf

The version of nvraid does matter, newer has more setting options.

All in all I would buy another 1TB drive (same type)  and would make
the array on the disk pair.

Istvan




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