mdadm and raidtools - noob

mdadm and raidtools - noob

[Mark Ryden]

Hello linux-raid list,

  I want to create a Linux Software RAID1 on linux FC5 (x86_64),
from SATA II disks. I am a noob in this.
	
  I am reading now chapter 26 ,"Linux Software Raid" ,
of "Linux Quick Fix Notebook" book
by Peter Harrison.

http://www.quickfixnotebook.com/

It talks in that chpater about using raidtools
(mkraid and /etc/raidtab config file) to do this.

I looked for it and saw that as far as I understand,
raidtools is quite old - from 2003.
for exanple, http://people.redhat.com/mingo/raidtools/

More than that, I saw that on my FC5, I did not have it at all.

Looking a bit more, I saw that there is installed mdadm util, which is
part of mdadm rpm.

"mdadm is a tool for creating, managing and monitoring
device arrays using the "md" driver in Linux, also
known as Software RAID arrays."
according to:
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~neilb/source/mdadm/ANNOUNCE

So my question is this:
is raidtools deprecated ?
Is it possible at all to use raidtool to create linux software RAID1,
running 2.6.17-1.2187_FC5 kernel on x86_64 ?
Is using mdadm is the way to create linux software RAID1 ? Is it the only way ?

Regards,
Mark Ryden

Re: mdadm and raidtools - noob

[David Greaves]

Mark Ryden wrote:
> Hello linux-raid list,
> 
>  I want to create a Linux Software RAID1 on linux FC5 (x86_64),
> from SATA II disks. I am a noob in this.
No problems.

> I looked for it and saw that as far as I understand,
> raidtools is quite old - from 2003.
> for exanple, http://people.redhat.com/mingo/raidtools/
correct

> So my question is this:
> is raidtools deprecated ?
Yes

> Is it possible at all to use raidtool to create linux software RAID1,
> running 2.6.17-1.2187_FC5 kernel on x86_64 ?
Maybe - don't

> Is using mdadm is the way to create linux software RAID1 ?
Yes

Is it the only way ?
No (eg EVMS)


David

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