[Techtalk] Software RAID (was Re: Simply Hardware 3B)

[Kai MacTane]

At 8/20/02 03:19 PM , Dave North wrote:
>Kai:
> > I am currently doing nothing at all with either hardware or software RAID.
> > But I might do so at some point in the near-to-distant future
>
>I suspect there are quite a number of people thinking about it, and the
>minimum requirement is just two disks, each with a roughly similar
>partition. And maybe 'no fear' of building a kernel, if need be.

I'd actually be most likely to do a RAID 0+5 (I'm pretty sure that's 
right)... the one where two volumes hold the data, and a third keeps parity 
data that allows all the data to be reconstructed if any of the three 
drives should crash or die. (Thus turning 3 drives of X KB each into a 
total of only 2X usable K of storage, but with peace of mind, even in the 
absence of any other backup solution.)

I'm generally considering this for my MP3 server, which has roughly 100 GB 
of stuff on it -- and none of it backed up, because I have no place to back 
all this stuff up *to*. It'd take something like 150 CDs! I don't even want 
to think about trying to back it all up to tape.

So, yeah... I'd need three drives instead of two, but otherwise, you are 
right, it wouldn't take much. Except time. And having three drives to 
spare, *aside* from the ones that currently have all the data on them.

(Basically, this project is waiting on budget constraints.)

But thanks for the encouragement!

                                                 --Kai MacTane
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