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Originally Posted by Electro
moaimullet, you could have just buy a hardware controller to make it very, very easy for yourself. Probably there are some files on the NTFS partition that are corrupt. Lucky for you they were not system based and they did not have obscured permissions. RAID 5 needs a lot of processor resources for I/O transactions. However, you may have even higher chance of data corruption or data loss, so I suggest backing up your data.
I would not do it your way because the reliability and stability have to go both ways for good operation. I know Linux is reliable and stable, but Windows is never reliable and stable. I rather pick being in debt for several months after buying a hardware RAID controller like from 3ware instead of doing it your way.
Note:
Using SCSI or SATA hard drives in a software RAID can change from one device node and to the next node. You may have to set the ID or use software labels to make it predictable upon boot up.
BTW, I have not yet setup RAID, but I studied the documentation at every angle.
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Hi Electro.. Yeah, it was a complete stab in the dark with this one. What made me take the jump was the fact that, should my costly hardware RAID controller die, I'd have to get a perfectly compatible replacement (e.g. the exact same model) or else lose everything. If the original RAID lasted a couple of years, that could get seriously expensive. That is way too much faith in hardware for me. So I did this knowing I had some free time ahead that could be spent reconfiguring if need be.
That said, so far so good. Haven't run into any NTFS corruption or permission problems to date. But you're dead on with the Linux vs Windows reliability: my biggest problem is that when XP randomly reboots, which it likes to do every couple of weeks without any warning or useful debug info, it does a rebuild on all volumes at once. Since they are all on the same physical disks, this does create some grindage, and can last around 7 hours. My solution is to reboot manually every week or so.. using Firefox it's hardly a problem to get back to where I was (reboot without closing any of its windows
, but having to remember is a pain sometimes..
Anyway, that is better left for a different thread. What is more relevant is that the CPU usage doesn't stray above 10%, even when rebuilding.. and I'm using an AMD 3500, hardly top of the line today. It's really negligible considering how much processor is on the market now. It might become an issue after Moore's Law does battle with the periodic table (and loses), but for now I'm happy..
