On 10/17/2011 5:09 PM, Raf Czlonka wrote: > On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 06:12:00PM BST, Camaleón wrote: >>> 1. does the HD need to be exactly the same as the one its being paired >>> with ? >> >> Not necessarily, but you will lose the remainder difference space between >> the smallest and the bigger of the disks. If you were referring to the >> brand/model/serial number of the disks some people think is better they >> exactly match (me) others think the opposite. > > It's not just size that matters ;^) > If you'd like your RAID array to perform better it's always better to > have the disks identical - cache size, speed, etc. If you have drives > which don't match, essentially your RAID will perform as good as your > worst drive.
Also keep in mind that with software RAID you won't be mirroring "drives" but partitions, since you're looking to mirror your boot/system drive. Getting your BIOS, boot loader and mdraid setup correctly so that the surviving drive boots the system after the other fails can be very very tricky, especially for a Linux RAID novice. If this is what you want to accomplish, then you have a lot of reading and research ahead of you, and likely some trial and error, along with headaches. Given the costs, learning curve, and "ease of use" issues, if I were you, I'd simply purchase a good cheap real RAID0/1 card and two new matching 500GB drives. Something like this combo: 1 x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116075 2 x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073 Setting up a RAID1 set will be pretty easy with this card, and if one drive fails the card simply boots the other automatically and writes the failure to a log file and/or sends you an email. No hoops you have to jump through as with mdraid. And you'll also get a nice little speed bump due to the 128MB of cache on board. If your system is connected to a good working UPS you can enable write caching for even better performance. Total cost of these parts from Newegg is about $270+shipping. All you need is a free PCIe x1 slot. If the cost isn't prohibitive, you'll be much happier with this solution. -- Stan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4e9cb609.2090...@hardwarefreak.com