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    I love how you can make a RAID of anything in Unix.

    Discussion in 'Linux Compatibility and Software' started by AlexOnFyre, Jul 23, 2007.

  1. AlexOnFyre

    AlexOnFyre Needs to get back to work NBR Reviewer

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    AlexOnFyre, Jul 23, 2007
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  2. Pitabred

    Pitabred Linux geek con rat flail!

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    Pitabred, Jul 23, 2007
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  3. lupin..the..3rd

    lupin..the..3rd Notebook Evangelist

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    That's the big benefit to software RAID. That you're performing the RAID functions at the partition level instead of the block device level. You can RAID anything that you can write a partition to.

    I'm using software RAID1 to mirror my two internal notebook drives.

    If you have an external firewire (or USB, yuck) drive, you can even do simple system backups by adding it in as a "3rd mirror" and breaking it off after the sync is complete.

    Software RAID is fun!
     
    lupin..the..3rd, Jul 23, 2007
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  4. Ethyriel

    Ethyriel Notebook Deity

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    Hmmm... I just got this wonderful vision of RAID 0 ram disks in my mind...
     
    Ethyriel, Jul 23, 2007
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  5. Pitabred

    Pitabred Linux geek con rat flail!

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    RAID0 isn't always faster. It really depends on what kind of data you store on it. And a regular RAM disk would be faster than a RAIDed one anyway because with RAID you'd have to do the parity checking and so on in the processor, rather than just passing the data through.
     
    Pitabred, Jul 23, 2007
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  6. fafler

    fafler Notebook Enthusiast

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    I once needed to create a 5 gb tar file on a system with FAT32 filesystem and a LiveCD. FAT32 doesn't support files larger than 2 gb. The solution? Create 3 2 gb loopback filesystems on the FAT32 device and use software RAID to stripe them into one 6 gb filesystem. Simple and beautiful.
     
    fafler, Jul 24, 2007
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  7. Ethyriel

    Ethyriel Notebook Deity

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    Interesting point. Maybe using a couple of those Gigabyte PCI/SATA ram disks. Of course, that could be done anywhere, including with a hardware controller.
     
    Ethyriel, Jul 24, 2007
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