On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 11:48:49PM +0000, John Robinson wrote: > On 24/03/2009 22:15, Dylan Distasio wrote: > >Hi all- > > > >I would like to put together a RAID10 array utilizing 2x1TB drives and > >2x500 gig drives I have in my home Linux server. Is the best way to do > >this to create 2 separate RAID1 arrays, one for each set of drives, and > >then a RAID0 array made up of the RAID1 ones? I just wanted to verify > >that I am going about this correctly, and also get input on whether > >there are any disadvantages to this setup. I would prefer not to split > >these up into two separate RAID10 arrays because I want the combined > >space available under one. Thanks for any comments. > > I think you can mix drive sizes under md RAID-10 - much as you're > proposing to above with your RAID-0 of different-sized RAID-1s - and md > will just do the Right Thing. I'd go for testing that and play with > layouts (near, far, offset) to suit your requirements before worrying > about setting up RAID 1+0. Hmm, the raid 0 will only use the space of all partitions that is equal to the smallest partition, that is the 500 gig drives. I think you better then only ude 500 gig partitions on the 1 TB disks for anything that is combined with the 500 gig disks. > Actually with your hardware I'd probably set up a 1TB RAID-0 with the > 500G drives then make a RAID-5 from the 3 1TB devices (2 raw drives plus > one md RAID-0). If you can be bothered try benchmarking that too; as > well as giving you more storage I think it'll probably match the RAID-10 > or RAID 1+0 for performance. In my book I would consider 2 setups: 1. a raid5 of 4 500 gig partitions, total 1,5 GB plus a raid10,f2 of two 500 gig partitions, total 2.0 GB 2. a raid10,f2 of 4 500 gig partitions, total 1.0 GB plus a raid10,f2 of two 500 gig partitions, total 1.5 GB. A small comparison table with my 2 scenarios, your own suggestion and john robisons: size perf-rd perf-wr 4x500 raid5 + 0.5 f2 1.5+0,5 3 3 4x500 raid10,f2 + 0.5 f2 1.0+0.5 4 2 4x500 raid1+0 + 0,5 f2 1.0+0.5 2 2 2x1tb+(500+500) raid5 2.0 2 2 So based on what your prefer, like most space vs most read or write performance, each of these configurations have something to offer. Best regards keld -- 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