Mount Points vs Physical Devices
 

Hi -
I set up my root directory on a RAID partition. I want to mount a third drive as a new directory, lets say /new for the sake of a name. It will be a sub directory of the root in the file system. I don't understand how it will escape being part of the RAID array. There's something about the difference between the dependency of directories in the file system and the mount points I'm missing.
Any clarifying remarks would be appreciated.

/ ( mounted on RAID 1 Array )
/usr
/home
/ect
/new ( not created or mounted yet )

Why when I mount /new on a third drive is it seperate from the RAID array?

Scott

when you mount a device partition to a directory it changes the attributes of the directory to point/link to the device.

in your case the linking information of /new will be stored in your raid array.
but the data located on the device will not be part of the raid array.

Any device is treated as hardware--even if it is a raid array (some raid setups are in hardware--some in software).

Mounting is perhaps better called "connecting". You are connecting your file system directory to the actual devices. The connection basically says to the OS: I f I put a file in <directory>, I actually want you to write it to <device>.

The connection concept actually has some parallel to the original construct in which tapes were mounted to tape drives.

Thanks both of you for the reply. Do I understand correctly that there is a pointer in my RAID array to information on the 3rd drive that represented by /new? In other words, the pointer is provided the protection of RAID 1 but not the data in /new.

Thanks - Scott