I see nothing wrong with background info if it is relevant. I am always interested in learning and not afraid to ask those green newbie questions, I too was there. I might not be as green as I once was but I am not an expert on everything, always learning and occasionally still ask to green questions. If I never explored out of my comfort zone I won’t continue to learn. Given I have time; I enjoy parting my experiences with others that have an interest. I think this is a great forum I have received lots of answers and info from both searching archives and asking directly. If there are some ruffled feathers, I apologize, but I don't care to hear the bashing. Please don't cc the group; I would rather it be emails just between the individuals with the concerns. As for as looking for more information or answers, I think there are many in the group willing to help out. But if we don't know what is desired or a more direct question we may not know what response is desired. It is not that the group is ignoring someone. Now (rolling up sleeves...), As for as the distro. You could ask 10 unix/linux guys and you would likely get 10 different answers. There are heated debates on this all the time. I have played with a few, not all, so I can tell you what my experiences are. Ubuntu is great for new Linux users. I have used this for one of my laptops and have set it up for my folks. I originally cut my teeth on RedHat long before Fedora was spun off from it. Currently I run my home server with Fedora Core 4. The most recent version is Fedora 7 (they dropped the core part). Distro Watch http://distrowatch.com/ is a good place to look for more info on different versions. Most of them will have several forums that would be available to you if you need to look for help unique to that distro. To expand the array, you will need a recent kernel. RAID 5 reshape has been out for some time. Any distro you chose that is current will provide what you need. RAID6 reshape was recently added in 2.6.21. It was release a few weeks ago. The latest stable is 2.6.21.5. This site has the vanilla kernel http://www.kernel.org/. When you pick a distro, they of course use the linux kernel but it is often a cooked version, certain tweaks or patches applied that that distro maintainers feel are appropriate to the users. Because of this, vanilla kernels are release prior to it being available to an update manager for that distro. Oh and update manager vary from between distros as well. Taking a quick look on an update mirror for Fedora 7, I see kernel-2.6.21-1.3228.fc7.i586.rpm so if you did an install for Fedora 7 than did a yum update to freshen all the packages you will get the required kernel to support RAID 6 reshape as well. Other distros might have the 2.6.21 available as well, if they don't, they will soon using their update manager. So you should not need to do any kernel recompile for a newer distro version. I had to because my version of Fedora is very old and end of service. They are not releasing new updates for me. That might be another item to consider, Fedora stops providing updates for version that are 2 releases below the current one. So Fedora 7 is the latest, 6 is still supported. When version 8 is released, 7 will be support and 6 will be dropped. Fedora has a rapid development timetable, a couple releases a year. Other distros might (probably do) have a longer life cycle. For building your raid, there are lots of options and variations. I can tell you some basic steps I used. I use the available slots on my motherboard and added a couple PCI cards to get me to a 10 disk array. You will have a newer system and using PCI-express cards. As for a recommendation, I would have to defer that to someone else. I have not upgraded my system to PCI-express yet. Most of the cards with several SATA ports will have more features then needed for software RAID. They have their own RAID which jacks up cost and it is not needed. I too would be curious to hear what others are using as I will need to update my system at some point. For my RAID set, I made a partition on each of my sata drives. I than marked them are type Linux Raid in the fdisk utility... Ummm what a min, here is a link I found from a google search the closely resembles the same steps I took years ago when I built the raid set I am using; http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/wiki/index.php/Quick_HOWTO_:_Ch26_:_Linux_Software_RAID To reshape, add drives to your raid set in the future, you first add the new drive to the existing raid set. mdadm --add /dev/md0 /dev/sdf1 Next use the --grow switch to reshape it to the new number of drives you want. The command below assumes you had 3 devices in the raid set before you added sdf1 and now after you added sdf1 to be available to the set, you want the raid-devices to be 4. Next time you add a device, it would be 5 ... mdadm --grow /dev/md0 --raid-devices=4 The filesystem then needs to be expanded to fill up the new space, for ext3 fsck.ext3 /dev/md0 resize2fs /dev/md0 For XFS xfs_growfs /dev/md0 Cheers, Dan. ----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Sent: Tue, 6/19/2007 8:44am To: Dexter Filmore ; David Greaves ; Daniel Korstad Cc: linux-raid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Software based SATA RAID-5 expandable arrays? Look at your sig... -- -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GCS d--(+)@ s-:+ a- C++++ UL++ P+>++ L+++>++++ E-- W++ N o? K- w--(---) !O M+ V- PS+ PE Y++ PGP t++(---)@ 5 X+(++) R+(++) tv--(+)@ b++(+++) DI+++ D- G++ e* h>++ r* y? ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ http://www.stop1984.com http://www.againsttcpa.com You should get out more, maybe learn to interact with people. Its sad that my post could effect you the way it did. You have Slinging insults has done nothing to provide a solution to my build, and has distracted from the quality of this forum. Maybe someone can recommend a different Linux Forum that is better moderated and/or not filled with a person so near sighted that I cant get a solution due to the fact that things tend to deteriorate into flame wars. Dexter why must you focus on information sharing as being negative. Am I proud of my gaming/work machine... absolutely... Just like I'm proud of my car and house. Did I share this info to brag to people on a RAID Linux forum? Absolutely not... Thats what OCForums is for:) I provided this information as to the reasons why I decided to build a separate machine, and to provide information on what resources I have. A great example is the idea to pull my 550w PSU from my work horse and place it into my NAS machine. I also was hoping for someone to come up with a unorthodox solution, that may save me money. This forum doesn't seem to be a place for answers, though I really appreciate the instructions from Daniel Korstad on how to put the drives to sleep. I have created a mail folder for such great responses. I have yet to get info on what build and/or distro I should use. What commands I need in Linux to build an array. What commands I need in Linux to expand the array, and what type of RAID-5 setup linux option I should use to What SATA adapter cards I should use. Or any other ideas and suggestions. Thanks Dexter for providing an environment where such info is unobtainable. GreenJelly PS The reason I use my Alias is the fact that their are socially inept, super critical, highly judgmental individuals who see asking for help, as begin a weakness. Or simply individuals who like to tear you down because you don't do things like they feel should be done. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? 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