I have 2 40G hard drives, I am currently running w2k server using disk spanning to maximize space on my D: for an FTP serv and file storage--I just don't have to worry about what goes where; there is a small OS partition and a gigantic partition for storage.

I would love to move to Linux, and have been thinking about it and toying with it for some time. A year ago-ish I tried Red Hat but didn't like it all that much.

I hear however that Red Hat now has a Logical Volume Manager that can accomplish the same thing as I am doing with w2k server right now. DOes Slackware have something similar? If not, is there a good alternative to setting the drives up that would be useful?

THanks much for any information provided.

Jim

Since you probably do not have a Slack install as yet to read the HOWTOs locally, then you might visit http://www.tldp.org and search on RAID. I only work with RAID-1 and 5. But I think RAID-0 is what you are interested in. That would allow say for a 2 GByte boot partition, and then a 78 GByte storage partition on your (2) 40 GByte.

I think there is also LVM, logical volume manager, available. I think it might also provide what you are looking for. It is has been awhile since I looked at it but I think it would append drives.

Both RAID and LVM currently have kernel support options.

Who knows perhaps after reading the info you might even consider a root RAID-1 system. I use root RAID-1 on most everything I have of any real importance. I do not have the funds to purchase a 70 GByte tape backup or anything like that. And how else can you backup such a massive amount. For instance my primary workstation runs (2) 120 GByte in RAID-1. It is not even reasonable to consider a complete backup.

Good luck.

LVM is supported in Slackware 8.1. I just configured my computer at work using it.

That is great information! The motherboard I am using does not have RAID and I don't have a RAID card to put in there right now, so I am glad to here there is LVM available for Slackware. Wish me luck! I am going to do my first Slackware install this week sometime.

Just to clarify on my prior post. The Linux software RAID that I use does NOT require any special hardware or controllers. My motherboards are all just regular VIA chipsets with dual IDE controllers. Mirror two masters together and/or two slaves together so that they will each have their own hardware interrupt. I have operated up to four IDE drives using Linux software RAID-1 and then added a Promise PCI IDE controller for CDROM, ZIP, tape, etc. For Linux software RAID-5 I recommend SCSI based disk subsystem to run 3 or more hard disks on just a regular Adaptec type SCSI controller.

Linux software RAID (md) devices can also be managed with LVM as well; if you think the added flexibility in the management would be of value.