Hi,
I have a question about moving drives between controllers with software RAID.
I'm planning on building a linux box with a large software RAID5 array (4
x 250/300GB disks) on which to store rips of my CD collection.
The server I have earmarked for this has built-in to it a "HighPoint
HPT370 PCI Dual Channel Ultra DMA/ATA 100 RAID Controller". I plan to
connect my four disks to the two ports of this controller, i.e. I will
have a master and slave drive on each channel.
First question: what is the kernel support like for this controller?
Secondly, I am aware that this is not the ideal configuration, but my
performance requirements are not massive as I won't be doing much more
than streaming MP3s to clients on my home network. However, if I were to
discover that performance was unacceptable I want to know if it would be
possible to install an additional controller in a PCI slot, and move the two
slave disks onto the new controller without re-building the array.
So, expressing my question explicitly:
Can I initially create a RAID5 array on this disk configuration:
HPT370--+--Channel A--+--master (Disk1)
| |
| +--slave (Disk2)
|
+--Channel B--+--master (Disk3)
|
+--slave (Disk4)
...then move the disks around like this:
HPT370--+--Channel A--+--master (Disk1)
|
+--Channel B--+--master (Disk3)
FooBar--+--Channel A--+--master (Disk2)
|
+--Channel B--+--master (Disk4)
...or this:
FooBar--+--Channel A--+--master (Disk1)
|
+--Channel B--+--master (Disk3)
|
+--Channel C--+--master (Disk2)
|
+--Channel D--+--master (Disk4)
...or even this:
FooBar 1--+--Channel A--+--master (Disk1)
|
+--Channel B--+--master (Disk3)
FooBar2--+--Channel A--+--master (Disk2)
|
+--Channel B--+--master (Disk4)
...without trashing the array?
Third question: If I were to decide on a replacement 4-port controller,
what models are well-supported?
Finally, I'd be interested to learn of any issues I might run into when
dealing with disks and filesystems of this size. For example, are there
any inherent limitations or absolute maximums I need to be aware of? What
about low-level issues like chunk size and block size, etc.? Any
recommendations as to the optimum settings, bearing in mind I will be
dealing with relatively large files?
Thanks for all comments.
R.
--
http://robinbowes.com
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