From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: misty-@charter.net Subject: Re: RAID 5 questions Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 01:19:46 -0400 Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <20040803051946.GA8781@roll> References: <1091325475.2374.11.camel@localhost> <20040801102430.GC28625@janus> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040801102430.GC28625@janus> To: Frank van Maarseveen , linux-raid@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-raid.ids On Sun, Aug 01, 2004 at 12:24:30PM +0200, Frank van Maarseveen wrote: > On Sun, Aug 01, 2004 at 11:27:56AM +0930, Ninti Systems wrote: > > > > Q1: Is it true that Linux can't/shouldn't boot off a RAID 5 array? > > >From software RAID it can't. > > USB storage devices (memory stick) are incredibly useful for this -- > I've even booted a webserver from a digital camera ;-). The only catch > may be the latency of the USB code when you don't want to use initrd: > The kernel panics (no root dev) because it takes noticeable time before > the kernel sees an USB storage device. But there are several tiny patches > for this, it's merely a nuisance. Personally I use sw raid5 as my /, and as I messed up and now can't fix it to work with a /boot, I instead use a lilo'ed 3.5 inch bootdisk, which loads the kernel and mounts root. *shrugs* it works fairly well, I can't complain much. Tim McGrath