I have new server, Intel Quad Core @ 2.4ghz w/ 4gb RAM, integrated RAID controller w/ 3 160gb WD sata HD's.

After reading the deployment guide, I have abandoned the hope of using the hardware RAID config w/in the BIOS as I believe that RedHat rec's using their software RAID for redundancy, and additionally, if I attempt to setup RAID 5 through the BIOS config, RedHat does not see it as a single drive, it still sees all three independent drives.

I would like to set the system up utilizing RAID 5. After booting to CD, I can set the software RAID up on each drive (using maximum available space) and Create a RAID using all of the software RAID's that I created. When I attempt to install RedHat, it states that I must have a boot partition, however, when I attempt to create it, it tells me that in order to do this I must use RAID 1.

So....I adjusted the raid size on the first HD and created a boot partition there, and adjusted the raid size on the 2nd HD and created a swap 'partition' there, and was able install Redhat fine, however, I'm not sure I understand how there can be RAID 5 striping and parity accross all the hd's if I didn't allocate all the available space to the RAID array.

I'm in totally over my head with this install and would appreciate any suggestions.

In short, I can totally wipe the system clean and start from scratch if anyone can explain in newbie terms how to accomplish the following:

Complete RAID 5 redundancy for both OS and all applications utilizing as much of the (3) 160 gb drives as possible so that if one fails, I simply replace it and have RAID rebuild the striping and parity automatically.

thanks,
L.

I'm not sure, but there may be a problem with your hardware or install. I've got RHEL5.1 running here and I have the OS and everything, running off a hardware RAID5 set.

From when I built my servers, I had to go into the BIOS on the RAID controller, and build the array there, setting up the RAID level, which disks were in the group, and set up the online spare. I didn't have any other drives, than the ones on the RAID controller.

When I booted from CD, it detected one drive, which was the RAID5 array. I partitioned and installed with no problems. I've got five servers here set up that way....I wouldn't abandon hardware RAID over software for any reason.

I think I may have found the issue, that RH is not seeing the RAID due to missing drivers. As per their tech, I downloaded the drivers from Intel, wrote the images to USB drives using physdiskwrite and am going to attempt a fresh install again tonight. They told me to boot to the CD#1 and type linux dd and select the new driver. Hopefully this will allow RH to see the array as a single drive. I'll post results later tonight. Thanks for the reply.

L.

General advice: If you run dedicated Linux box (no dual-booting) use Linux kernel RAID instead. More flexibility and better performance.