Filesystem and Raid 5 Issue - Plan of Action Question
 

Ok,

So I check this new computer that came in the other day to see what kind of filesystem it had set up when Dell sent the computer.

It showed the following:

/dev/sda5 418582916 /
/dev/sd3 101107 /boot
none 1031976 /dev/shm


The computer has 4 , 176 gb hard disks in it and its running under Raid5 from what I gather during boot up. But that brings up some questions I had and seek advice on.

What I would like to is develop a much better filesystem as I feel just having one gigantic block on / is not good, right?

I'm not familiar with how Raid works though and I've begun to walk through the steps of reading more into it and with more detail but in this current situation I am a little out of touch.

What I would like to do is set a strucutre similar to this


/dev/sda1 100 gb /scratch
/dev/sda2 75 gb /data1
/dev/sda3 75 gb /data2
/dev/sda4 50 gb /home
/dev/sda5 100gb /backup

Now this is a RH 9 machine only. No dual boot, no windows, nothing like that.

I'm guessing I should also allocate some space for / also , correct?

The way they want to set it up is to have data1 and data2 and home backed up on the backup partition and then have the 100gb of scratch area just be stuff they dont care about losing if there were to be a failure.

My questions are pretty clear, just needed to explain the background of the issue.

a) How can iI change the inital / , to the 5 separate partitions I want to set up. Would I have to reinstall from scratch, does that affect the Raid controller, can i just do a normal install and have it work ok even with the computer acknowledging the Raid controller in setup?

b) Am I missing any filesystems you think I should have outsdie of the 5 I listed above? Would you recommend a different settup based on what I outilined above.

My first instinct tells me that I should reinstall and set it up again but not sure if that will have any effect on the RAID controller. I was wondering if there was a tool I could use in RH to reparttion that huge block and not worry about having to do a full reinstall.

All I want is some opinoins on what my options are and what some optimal setups for my filesystems should be. There is adequte hard drive space heh just want to spread it out incely.

Thank you much for your insight and advice that any of you have my give heh.

=)

Oh I forgot to add.

I'm still in what I'd consider the noob zone of RH.

So I'm sorry if I'm asking a really simple question.


Thanks!!