news@celticbear.com wrote:
> In our small business, we have to hold onto gigs of data. And sadly,
> disgustingly, we don't have any good backup (periodic DVD burning when
> we can) and the PC holding the info just has a couple of ATA HD's.
>
> We're needing to put together a file server, and I'm looking into mobos
> that handle RAID 10. From what I can see, that's the best balance of
> efficiency and performance even with the 50% size usage.
>
> Here're my questions:
> I am finding it hard to find info on how the RAID is managed and if a
> drive fails, how to replace it and rebuild the array. Some info I
> REALLY need to know before I set one up. =)
> I've found lots of info about what an array does but no real meat on
> managing an array.
> Any pointers of where I can go to find actual how-to's would be
> appreciated.
>
> I'm pretty comfortable with Fedora Core. But, I'm also looking into
> Slackware since a lot I've found indicates it's a bit (or a lot) more
> stable, secure, and tested.
> So, does the OS handle array management, or software apart from the OS?
> (When I installed a SATA on my own PC I had to install some HD software
> that loads up before the OS does.
> So does picking the OS matter too much when considering RAID?
>
> And, how hard is it to replace a RAIDed drive?
> If I have a RAID 10 and a drive goes bad, is it as easy as replacing
> the drive and selecting something in a program that "rebuilds the
> array"?
> (How would I know a drive's gone bad anyway? Does the RAID do a
> constant parity check and whatnot and let me know of abnormalities? Or
> do I have to run an FSCK or something now and then?
>
> Thanks for any feedback and information!
>
I would go out and buy an external enclosure with a few drives and
backup right now.

Then buy the "mdadm" book for education on how it all works. You might
also learn about RAID-6 storage, it will survive the failure of any two
drives, like RAID-10, but needs far fewer drives. For data on N drives,
R10 needs 2*(N+1) and R6 needs N+2. You want a hot spare with either,
and RAID-10 performs better after a two drive failure.

Start climbing the learning curve, people on the net can only provide
places to look.

--
bill davidsen
SBC/Prodigy Yorktown Heights NY data center
http://newsgroups.news.prodigy.com