[NTLUG:Discuss] Software RAID-1 success and questions.

[Chris Cox]

Dan Carlson wrote:

>So lilo does have some level of raid support, but it sounds like its
>awareness is limitted to raid-1.  Since I run raid-5 and I have a better
>understanding of the old approach than the new approach (it seems like
>you've got to have an mbr somewhere in order to get to the md boot record,
>and I prefer to control where it goes), I prefer the old-fashioned way for
>the time being.
>
Yes... I should have said RAID 1 (mirroring).

Not sure I would run Linux software raid 5 (way too many variables).... 
though I have
run software raid 5 just for the fun of it in the past... but I wouldn't 
run it on anything
production ... use hardware raid instead.

Not to go too far off topic, but my personal opinion is that raid-5 
should be external if
possible via a good hardware controller.... internal drives should be 
mirrored and software
raid is adequate for that task if hardware raid is lacking.

With the cost of disks being so low, raid-5 is kind of dying in 
preference to raid-10
configurations, where depending upon the amount of drives involved, 
gives greater
performance and reliability versus raid-5.  However, I'll admit, I've 
not deployed
a raid-10 yet, but I do think it is the way of the future for raid.