On Tue, 2010-03-23 at 13:31 -0700, solarflow99 wrote: > hehe, this whole setup sounds like err .... a recipe for disaster
Ignoring the swap part, the biggest issue with MD RAID-1 /boot is the case where a disk fails, but it's "still alive" from the standpoint of the the BIOS, so it still assigns it as hd(0). So the MBR fails to load, so GRUB never launches. One would have to go into the BIOS and tell it to assign BIOS disk 80h (GRUB hd(0)) as the 2nd disk. This is one area where FRAID-1/dmraid can be a better, transparent boot solution, because the FRAID logic for Int13h Disk Services will be presenting the disks as a single BIOS disk 80h, hd(0) from the standpoint of GRUB. Of course, I don't recommend FRAID-1/dmraid for anything but /boot on an enterprise system. Which brings us back to considering a real (not fake) hardware RAID-1 solution, even if just a 2-disc solution** for just /boot, swap, / (root) and select, other system volumes. LVM Mirroring can then be utilized for RAID-1, or MD can then be utilized for software RAID-1, 10, 5, 6, whatever, for other volumes (and even /usr, which will be largely read-only and act like RAID-0 sans 1-2 stripes, depending if RAID 5 or 6). -- Bryan **A 3ware 9650SE-2LP is a low-profile, 2-channel SATA/SAS PCIe x1 slot card that will work in just about anything, as well as "out-of-the-box" with RHEL/Fedora (including updating any firmware -- right in the 3w-9xxx driver), solving any and all boot-time issues. For around $150, it buys a lot of piece-of-mind for boot/root. ;) -- Bryan J Smith Senior Consultant Red Hat, Inc Professional Consulting http://www.redhat.com/consulting mailto:[email protected] +1 (407) 489-7013 (Mobile) mailto:[email protected] (Blackberry/Red Hat-External) -------------------------------------------------------- You already know Red Hat as the entity dedicated to 100% no-IP-strings-attached, community software development. But do you know where CIOs rate Red Hat versus other software and services firms for their own, direct needs, year after year? http://www.redhat.com/promo/vendor/ _______________________________________________ rhelv5-list mailing list [email protected] https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rhelv5-list
