Create software RAID partitions first, then create filesystem partitions on top of th
 

I'm installing Linux on a brand new system (Fedora, but this is sort of a distro-neutral question I think).

I have Serial ATA with two identical 80GB drives. I would like to mirror these drives using RAID1 provided by the MD driver (I think it's the MD driver...).

I've been reading the docs at LDP and a bunch of other locations, and I think I just need some clarficiation.

Do I need a seperate RAID1 partition for each filesystem that I want to be mirrored? If I want to have seperate /tmp /var /home /boot partitions, do I need to setup a RAID1 device (/dev/md0 /dev/md1 /dev/md2 , etc) for each of these partitions?

For example, pretend I want a 10GB /tmp partition. To do this I do the following:

1. Create a 10GB RAID partition on /dev/sda1
2. Create a identical 10GB RAID partiton on /dev/sda2
3. This creates a RAID device /dev/md0 which is 10GB
4. To create a /tmp filesystem , I use /dev/md0 as the device.

If I want to mirror other partitions, such as /boot and /home , I follow a similar procedure.

Does that sound right?

Thanks for your help,

-= Stefan

I think I found the answer.

If I want to create separate partitions for for /tmp , /home and /boot , I need to create a RAID partition for each of these filesystems.

When I create a 10GB RAID partition from /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 , I get a 10GB block device named /dev/md0 .

I can then create /tmp to be a 10GB filesystem on the new block device /dev/md0 .