From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Bill Davidsen Subject: Re: Removing a failing drive from multiple arrays Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2012 08:59:01 -0400 Message-ID: <4F994695.9010509@tmr.com> References: <4F905F66.6070803@tmr.com> <20369.29756.761374.308057@quad.stoffel.home> <4F918F5C.2000607@anonymous.org.uk> <4F9450D1.40305@anonymous.org.uk> <4F98B4FE.5010101@tmr.com> <20120426073607.GA11590@nsrc.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <20120426073607.GA11590@nsrc.org> Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Brian Candler Cc: Linux RAID List-Id: linux-raid.ids Brian Candler wrote: > On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 10:37:50PM -0400, Bill Davidsen wrote: >> I have put MBR and boot partition on a USB thumb drive because the >> failure rate of a R/O flash is lower than rotating devices (in my >> experience). Use ext2 for boot, no journal so the drive works really >> read-only. Hopefully grub2 mounts the boot noatime. > Another option, although I've not done this for a long time, is PXE boot. > You need a DHCP server giving out the correct parameters and a TFTP server > for the kernel (and ramdisk?) > I think that's addressing one point of failure while adding more. The network (as a collection of single points of failure), the server(s), all seem to go in the "must work" category. Adding stuff in parallel is good, if one works the process works, in series is bad, if one fails the process fails. Like many people I'm trying for five star reliability on a three star budget. I do have redundant servers and storage, I lack up to the last transaction file duplication. And as I found last year, my firewall and DNS have a backup, but it's on a shelf, not running in parallel. That's on my list of things to do this summer. Thanks for the thought, that would be a great install option, wouldn't it? -- Bill Davidsen We are not out of the woods yet, but we know the direction and have taken the first step. The steps are many, but finite in number, and if we persevere we will reach our destination. -me, 2010