RAID

[shannonp]

I have installed Redhat 9 with a Samba Domain...its been going very well.

However, I neglected to setup RAID1 (mirror drive) at installation. My 2nd HDD has been set up as a standard partition....

Am I able to setup Raid without having to reformat my entire system?

Thanks For The Help!

 

[Iefke]

Hi,

I am a Linux-newbie, but I try to offer some help.
A few months ago I managed to build a Samba-server with RAID which is running fine since then.
When looking for the know-how I remember this procedure was decribed in one of the RAID HOW-TO's at

http://www.tldp.org

and elsewhere.
The procedure involves installing Linux on 1 disk at first, and then turning it into a RAID1. This should be usefull in your case also.
The difficulty lies in the fact that you have to move all of Linux (root etc..) onto the RAID. It involves quiet a few steps. I never finished the procedure but used an intermediate solution since there is nothing critical on the server: I installed 3 disks: 1 small with everything Linux, the other 2 big ones in RAID1 with only the Samba-shares. In case of emergency (disk 1 fails) I can move the 'good' disk quickly to another machine.

A few things I learned:
Don't buy a IDE-RAID equipped motherboard or controller for Linux, they behave just like ordinary IDE-interfaces under Linux. (at least you have four of them!)
Don't use the slave-sides of your IDE-busses (2 disks on one cable) for RAID, they're slooo

http://wwww...

The best solution would be a real hardware SCSI RAID-controller, but that will be for the next server ...

Hope you can use some of this info.