Does Linux support RAID?

[Bluga]

I have two HD that is connected to an IDE RAID card, will Linux recognize my partitions?.

 

[Workin']

Probably not. But check your card's manufacturer's web site to see if they have drivers or other pointers.

 

[Shadow07]

I beleive the new kernel 2.4 support IDE RAID. I would check out http://kernelnotes.org/ for links that are on the bottom. You will find out the support the new kernel should have. I know for a fact that the new kernel supports RAD 0, 1, 5, and some hybrid RAID drives. It also supports a newer LINUX filesystem.

Hope that helps.

 

[SUOrangeman]

May depend on your controller as well. 3ware is supposed to have excellent support in Linux. I hope to test that theory with a future purchase.

-SUO

 

[Bluga]

I use Abit IDE RAID controller, can i just try RH on my system and see if it works? Or it could crash my system?

 

[Workin']

You could try installing RH. When it comes to the partitioning part of setup, see if the array shows up correctly or not. If you stop there I don't think you will break anything or lose any data.

 

[Quaggoth]

I think it will work fine. I have linux on my PC at home, with the abit board, but with no drives on the raid controller. The reason I think it will work fine though, is because the card handles all of the raid stuff. I think MIGHT need drivers, but I think I read somewhere that the card is supprted even in RH6.2. I know DOS see's it fine, it just picks it up as a normal drive. I think the HPT card does a good job of masking the fact that it is a RAID array.

 

[Zach]

RAID sets look like single disks to OS's, it's a matter of the controller having drivers for the OS.

As for "I know for a fact that the new kernel supports RAD 0, 1, 5, and some hybrid RAID drives", software RAID has been available in linux for a very long time, at least Redhat 6.0 and the 2.0 Kernel, so there's where the kernel needing to support RAID must come in..

And, there are some newer drivers for the HighPoint based controllers available for Redhat 7.

 

[BOFH]

there is support for the chipset as a regular ide controller. there is also some limited support for it from high point themselves.

 

[Shadow07]

I was referring to the actual controller, not software based RAID. From what I read about the new features of the 2.4 Kernel, it is supposed to have improved RAID support, even for the newer hybrid RAID controllers.

Since the RAID controller you have is basically an IDE controller, any generic IDE controller driver should work. I am not sure if the driver will allow the additional drives to be recognized by the OS or not. As you know, the IDE RAID controllers now support up to a total of 8 drives on 2 channels.