linux as a server, newbie question

[patrichek]

Hello,
I am in the process of building a new pc to act as a file server. I have little experience with linux and wondered if i could get some pointers.
first of all i want to make the server a raid 1 (hardware). any tips?
also, it will be joining a windows domain (w2k server), but only as the file server. I plan on copying data from the windows server to the linux machine. just database files, is this possible?
Also, i plan on using red hat.
sorry if the questions seem juvenile.
thanks!

 

[ericbrunson]

If you want to do raid in hardware, then you need to buy some raid hardware.
You can participate in an NT domain with a suite of applications call Samba and it has its own forum here at tek-tips.

 

[patrichek]

eric,
thanks, i understand about the hardware on a raid, i just have never done so with linux. I'm a windows guy looking to expand to linux
I wasn't sure if there was something out of the ordinary i needed to watch for with raid1 on linux red hat

 

[lgarner]

No. If the RAID is in hardware, the OS is ignorant of it. Although server OS's can handle their own RAID in software, hardware is definitely the way to go for performance and reliability.

 

[Trekkie]

lgarner is right...hardware raid can only be seen ie) scsi configurator.

Regarding Samba, you should use 3.1 or above with winbind under Active directory.