SATA Raid install options
 

OK gang here is the deal. I am a linux novice. I tried linux and have decided that it is the way for me to go permanently, but I have some work related programs that need XP. So here is what I want to do and what I have available. Currently, I have SUSE 10.1 but would be willing to use a different distribution if that would make this work better. A best guess, and a rough procedure would be appreciated.

CPU
AMD-64

Motherboard
2 SATA Ports

Separate SATA Card
4 SATA Ports

SATA Drives
(2) 233 GB
(2) 80 GB

IDE Drive available (if needed)

I want the 2 large drives to be mirrored (RAID 1), with linux and a large data partition readable by either OS.
I want the 2 smaller drives to be mirrored (RAID 1), with XP. This should allow me to remove the 2 smaller drives at a later date, if desired.
I mentioned the IDE drive because I saw that kernel 2.6 does not work on a software RAID if boot loader installed to RAID. So, if I have to, I can install a small IDE drive to put the boot loader on.
Would it be better to install the two main drives on the motherboard SATA or install all 4 on the PCI SATA card?
I assume from my reading that the dual access partition on the larger pair will need to be formatted as FAT32.
So many cats, so few recipes!!

Why the mirrored drivers for? When you mirror drives you lose on hard drive for redundency. I would use one 80gig hd for windows. One 80 gig for Linux then stripe the two 233 gig drives and format it with fat32 so both windows and linux can read and write data to it. Just my :twocents:

why mirror??
 

With the luck I have had in the past with crashes on spinning hard drives, I would feel better with the additional security of having the mirror. That way, if I screw it up with updates, downloads, whatever, I can kick myself. But I have the security that I should not have simultaneous crashes on the mirrored pair.
As part of this system is job related, I can not afford to be down for the time it would take to reload in the event of a crash.

I see. Well then in that case I would use the two eighty gig hdd's to install linux and windows. Then I would use the two 233 gig hdds for your files to share between windows xp and linux.

thanks for input
 

jstephens84

:D
Thank you, i believe that will work. I need to do some quick calculations on sizes. Assuming that will work (based on size), do you have any feel for the other parts of my question? Do I need to install the IDE drive and put the boot loader on it? If so, what all needs to go on that drive? And do you have a feel for the order of installation for all of the various parts? Also, any feel for the onboard versus PCI SATA ports and keeping the 4 drives together (all on PCI card) or splitting between motherboard and PCI card?

I would use the motherboard sata and install windows first and linux last. Also I believe that linux swap can be installed onto a raid1 configuration. You can even write a script so that if one drive dies the swap file will change over to the other. I was responding to a thread not to long ago about this.

just another point of view, I do not claim it is right ;)

I think you can have grub as bootloader on a raid1 no problem.
Sometimes the install procedure is "strange" on raid1 for some distro,
requiring to install on 1 drive, then duplicating on the second

split between 4/2 cards: I would look at
and see which card is best supported http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html
In case of sata card "breaking" I would have rather 2 HDs on each card.

Other have your life ""simple"" solution:
install linux on the IDE and have a dd backup (crontab at regular interval)
if one HD packs up in the raid, if they are same model, the risk is
increasing both HD may have been manufactured round same time
and could pack up as well

What's the ventilation like for these 5 HDs

NB: Any linux distro is very roomy on 10 Gb