[sclug] RAID 5

[Keith Edmunds]

Tim Sutton wrote:
> - - Which distro makes raid configuration easiest (debian based preferably)?

Debian is pretty easy and is what I would use by choice.

> - - How can we set up the raid so that it will boot successfully if any
> of the disk fail - we tried to set up /boot on a CF device but were
> unable to get debian to boot from it even after getting a CF -> ide ->
> sata converter so that all devices on the machine appear to the bios
> as sata?

Use RAID-1 (mirroring) for the boot partition. For many reasons I 
wouldn't use RAID-5 at all; instead I would rather mirror everything, 
but that's up to you.

> - - What exactly is the difference between the active and inactive
> partitions?

For DOS/Windows: it is the partition to boot.

> - - how can we clone the /boot partition across all disks (Im thinking a
> cron job here, but can I clone the mbr to all disks and have the
> second in line disk boot if the normal boot drive fails)?

dd can clone the mbr, but really you only need to clone it when you 
change it. To be honest, while you can boot from the second disk, this 
is not the major failure mode unless you regularly reboot the server. 
What is more likely is that the disk will fail when the server is in use.

> - - can teh boot partition be in the raid? I seem to recall mandrake
> used to allow that with its partitioning tool, but Ive never met
> another distro that lets me do that...

Yes, but only RAID-1.

-- 
Keith Edmunds

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