> > Hi, > > I feel like this is a stupid question. But I actually don't know the answer > to it. If I'm going to make a Software RAID array with a bunch of identical > disks, do the disks have to have at least one partition on them? Or can I use > disks with NO partitions? Yes, the disks have to have partitions. When you specify "make a raid out of X, Y, Z", the X, Y, and Z are partition names, like /dev/hda1, /dev/hdb1. You can't make a raid out of /dev/hda and /dev/hdb - whole devices. > > Similarly, if I have made a hardware RAID array (say, with a 3ware 8506 > card), do I have to create at least a single partition on it before I put a file > system on it? Hardware raid is usually device oriented, so you do say "make a raid pair out of drive 0 and drive 1, equivalent to /dev/hda and /dev/hdb for example. This drive pair is then presented to Linux as a single hardware devices, like /dev/hdi. You always need to make partitions with fdisk before initializing the partition with a filesystem using mkfs. > If partitions aren't necessary, is there any advantage or disadvantage to > having a single partition on a disk versus having none? Is having no partitions > faster? > > Andy Liebman > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in > the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
