On Thu, 2 Apr 2009 12:31:29 +0100 "Chris Harries" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Mr Roberts, > > I just wanted to verify something which you stated in this e-mail > > > If you *only* want to do RAID 1 (mirroring), and you are not booting > > to the volume, you might be better off looking at `man softraid` > > I am looking at softraid, and can make a mirroed raid of 2 HDD's with > a 3rd holding the OS, but I am guessing you meant I cannot have 2 > drives in mirror, built with softraid and bioctl, that the OS is on? > > Many Thanks > Chris First of all the formality of "Mr" is totally unnecessary. I'm just a regular person, no different than you. ;) The number of disks you put into your RAID1 mirror is your choice. You could have two, three or whatever you like. The point I was trying to make is the "CAVEATS" section of the man page for softraid clearly states you cannot currently boot from a softraid volume. If have understood (and recalled) the statements of Marco Peereboom (one of the main project developers working on the softraid code - marco@) correctly, the current limitation of not being able to boot to the softraid volume will eventually be removed. At present, the RAIDframe support has more features (bootable, more RAID disciplines, ...), and has been around for a very long time (i.e. well tested) so the proverbial "some people" would consider it a better choice for a production system (i.e. they have a *very* conservative view/opinion of server setup/management). In my ever so humble opinion, *I* see the newer softraid support as a better design. Though it is a work in progress, it is very stable and very useful. The newer softraid design allows for better integration of other tools (which are also newer than RAIDframe). The question you need to ask yourself is simple: "Why would someone decided to write a new implementation of software RAID when you *already* have an old, well tested implementation of software RAID?" That is a difficult question, and opinions *will* vary. The reason why I mentioned softraid to you is simply to let you know that you have more than one option if you want to do software RAID and you need to make your own decision on which implementation best fits your particular needs. -- J.C. Roberts
