A few IDE RAID Questions (including some Linux)

[jazzman42379]

Hey everyone.

I'm looking towards the future and building a decent everything server. Come the end of the summer, it will be a firewall, proxy, router, web server, and file server...all under Red Hat 7.2. Had a few questions regarding the storage situation. I want to put either RAID 1 or RAID 5 in there, so as to make sure that I don't loose my data.

Any recommendations as to which RAID controllers work well with Linux? I've seen the Promise ones have an attachment for the drives that make them hot swappable. Anyone have any experience with these? Also, which would be preferred on a linux server as this...getting a motherboard with RAID onboard? Or getting an add-on raid card? And would using a 64-bit controller and a MB with a 64 bit PCI Slot be that much of an improvement?

Now a question kindof on the funtionality of RAID. I've seen that many hot-swappable SCSI controllers automatically rebuild the data on a new drive, so if you doi have to replace a drive, it the array gets rebuilt. Would an IDE RAID 1 array have this capabilty? Maye not automatic, but if a drive dies, and I replace it, will I be able to rebuild the whole array?

Thanx in advance,
Jazzman

 

[Nosrema58]

I use the HighPoint IDE Raid controller on my Epox 8k7A+ motherboard. THere is a linux driver in the kernel since about 2.4.6. You will not be able to use the stock kernel from Redhat 7.2. You will have to recompile the kernel and turn on support for the highpoint raid controller. The HPT370 will do Raid 0, Raid 1 and Raid 0+1.

 

[Armitage]

3ware RAID cards are very well supported under Linux, and they are about the best there is in terms of performance also.
RedHat, at least, will automagically detect & configure a 3ware card at install time.

I don't know about the automatic rebuild of a new drive. I think it does, but I haven't had the opportunity to try it.

 

[CRH]

Cool, Nosrema58!

What is the HighPoint IDE Raid controller called in the kernel configuration process i.e. what is the module name?

Should it be compiled as part of the kernel or as a loadable module?

Thanks.