Re: Hardware RAID on Linux - Configuration questions
"Tom Lesniak" <[email protected]> Tue, 24 Feb 2004 08:34:58 -0500
| Newsgroups | gmane.linux.drivers.aacraid.devel |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Mark, You'll probably get more responses if you post to the standard [email protected] list. Anyway, hardware raid is much simpler to configure than software raid. Basically, you configure the drives (via the raid controller's BIOS) before you install any software. There are admin tools that you will want so once you load the OS, you can administer the RAID controller from within the OS. (i.e. monitoring and rebuilding drives/arrays) You don't need to edit any files (such as raidtab) or issue any commands (like mkraid) to create the arrays. As far as the OS is concerned, it does not know that the drives are in a RAID array. The controller "hides" this from the OS. Depending on which PERC controller you use, you may end up having a megaraid based controller, not an aacraid based controller. I believe that all of the PERC4 controllers are megaraid controllers, as are the PERC3/dc,qc controllers. You'll just have to make sure that you have the correct drivers and monitoring software installed. If you look through the archives for the mailing lists, you'll find that there has been a lot of talk about performance/throughput of the PERC raid controllers. Some people prefer software raid because they are able to get better performance out of it. Just something that you'll need to consider. Hope this helps. Tom "Mark Cuss" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent by: cc: linux-aacraid-devel-admi Subject: Hardware RAID on Linux - Configuration questions [email protected] 02/23/2004 05:26 PM Please respond to mcuss Hello I've used software RAID pretty extensively before, but I'm looking into getting a Dell Server and attaching a 220s SCSI Disk array to it using a PERC4 card. I've got some questions about how the configuration works as compared to software RAID... If I've posted this to the wrong place, please accept my apologies and let me know where I should post this. My question basically is: How does one configure RAID devices when using a hardware RAID? Is this done somehow through the controller BIOS or its it done through the OS? To add a software RAIDs I would edit the raidtab file as necessary and issue the "mkraid" command, create the filesystem, and that was it - the RAID was ready for use. Are hardware RAIDs configured in the same manner? Or is some utility software included with the driver? Thanks in advance, Mark Mark Cuss, B. Sc. Real Time Systems Analyst System Administrator CDL Systems Ltd Suite 230 3553 - 31 Street NW Calgary, AB, Canada Phone: 403 289 1733 ext 226 Fax: 403 282 1238 www.cdlsystems.com _______________________________________________ Linux-aacraid-devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.us.dell.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-aacraid-devel Please read the FAQ at http://lists.us.dell.com/faq or search the list archives at http://lists.us.dell.com/htdig/