Software RAID migration from Snow Leopard to Debian
 

I've used Mac OS X 10.6.8 for a long time an now, with my great pleasure, I finally moved to Debian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie) 64-bit.

Using Mac, I was used to backup all my documents and files on two externals USB hard drives, that I configured in a RAID 1 setup using Disk Utility application.

When I wanted to backup something I was used to connect these HDs simultaneously via an USB hub to my Mac and to simply drag files on the RAID volume.

Here's a simple scheme of my disk configuration:

• DISK 1 (2TB disk) = RAID Partition (1TB, FAT32) + TimeMachine partition (500GB MacOS Extended Journaled) + another partition (500GB FAT32);
• DISK 2 (1TB disk) = RAID Partition (1TB, FAT32);

Here an image if you want to better understand what I mean.

Now I was wondering if it is possible to replicate this workflow on Debian, possibly without loosing any of the data I already have on these disks.
Do I have to use mdam? And how?
Let me know if you need more information.

Thanks very much for your support.

Mac OS is actually BSD UNIX. Here's a link to the information I think you need: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/f...ay/003503.html

How did you create the raid? Did you use Softraid or the older raid?

In linux there are a few ways to manage raid. The older software raid as in mdadmin might be able to mount and access the mac created raid. I never trust cross platform deals usually.

If you have enough room you can copy off data to remote resource and then create one of a number or ways to make a raid available to linux. Ideas and combinations of software raid, lvm, zfs and btrfs may suite your needs.

Thank you guys for your help,

This is a little too difficult to me to understand how to manage all this.

I don't know how I created the raid, I used the user-interface 'Utility Disk' software from Mac OS X 10.6.8 and I don't know what it uses under the hood.

Maybe as you suggest I should copy off all data and create a brand new RAID with linux...