Ian Batterbee wrote:
- Am I supposed to use md to do the array ?
Yes, because in case of hardware failure this is the option which leaves you with a bootable system in case of hardware failure - AFAIK.
Just be sure you are using lilo, and not grub. Lilo understands md devices, and will install on all disk. Grub doesn't and is very painful to install on all disks.
Okay, but that raises the question of under what circumstances SHOULD I (or anyone for that matter) use ataraid ?
If you have a dual boot system that is running windows.
- Is there some way I can still use ataraid ? - If I do use ataraid, should I break the mirror in the BIOS, or should I leave it enabled ?
You do not want that because the driver was not fault tolerant at all last time I looked. Iff (if and only if) you decide to use ataraid nevertheless, leave the mirror settings in the BIOS enabled.
Given that the HPT card doesn't actually do anything more than a normal IDE controller once the machine is booting, what does the "RAID1" mirror setting actually do ? It seems that all it does is allows the BIOS to automatically boot off the 2nd drive in a mirror if the first one is unavailable, but that could also be acomplished manually by using the "set boot drive" menu option in the HPT BIOS.
So if I use md, and am therefore not going to use HPT drivers once the OS is up, is there really any point in having the BIOS believe that there's a RAID array over it believing that it has two unrelated hard drives attached ?
Nope as long as you have installed your bootloader on both disks. It should just work. This is more easily done with lilo than grub. (Redhat configs this automagicly if you chose lilo as your bootloader.) Also the ataraid driver crashes the system when you lose a disk. (At least it does on my systems using promise.)
-- There is no such thing as obsolete hardware. Merely hardware that other people don't want. (The Second Rule of Hardware Acquisition) Sam Flory <sflory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
