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The Software-RAID HOWTO

Jakob Østergaard ( jakob@unthought.net)

v0.90.8, 2002-08-05

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This HOWTO describes how to use Software RAID under Linux. It addresses a specific version of the Software RAID layer, namely the 0.90 RAID layer made by Ingo Molnar and others. This is the RAID layer that is the standard in Linux-2.4, and it is the version that is also used by Linux-2.2 kernels shipped from some vendors. The 0.90 RAID support is available as patches to Linux-2.0 and Linux-2.2, and is by many considered far more stable that the older RAID support already in those kernels.

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1. Introduction

• 1.1 Disclaimer
• 1.2 Requirements

2. Why RAID ?

• 2.1 Device and filesystem support
• 2.2 Performance
• 2.3 Terms
• 2.4 The RAID levels
• 2.5 Swapping on RAID

3. Hardware issues

• 3.1 IDE Configuration
• 3.2 Hot Swap

4. RAID setup

• 4.1 General setup
• 4.2 Linear mode
• 4.3 RAID-0
• 4.4 RAID-1
• 4.5 RAID-4
• 4.6 RAID-5
• 4.7 The Persistent Superblock
• 4.8 Chunk sizes
• 4.9 Options for mke2fs
• 4.10 Autodetection
• 4.11 Booting on RAID
• 4.12 Root filesystem on RAID
• 4.13 Making the system boot on RAID
• 4.14 Converting a non-RAID RedHat System to run on Software RAID
• 4.15 Pitfalls

5. Testing

• 5.1 Simulating a drive failure
• 5.2 Simulating data corruption

6. Reconstruction

• 6.1 Recovery from a multiple disk failure

7. Performance

• 7.1 RAID-0
• 7.2 RAID-0 with TCQ
• 7.3 RAID-5
• 7.4 RAID-10

8. Related tools

• 8.1 A raidtools supplement or replacement: mdadm
• 8.2 RAID resizing and conversion
• 8.3 Backup

9. Credits

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