Dell Software RAID with Red Hat Enterprise Linux4 - Manual (Page 5)

Software RAID with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
3
Configuring and Managing Software RAID
with Red Hat
®
Enterprise Linux 4
The increasing cost-effectiveness of software RAID offers Linux system administrators an
alternative to more expensive hardware-based RAID implementations. This is due to the
performance and cost advantages of the Linux operating system and rapid advancements in
processor power. Using the software RAID layer and management tools in Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 4, you can build effective, cost-efficient software RAID implementations that best suit
your requirements.
Creating Software RAID Arrays During Linux Operating
System Installation
Complete the steps mentioned in the following sections to create each software RAID device.
• Creating a software RAID boot partition
• Creating a software RAID swap partition
• Creating a software RAID root partition
• Creating additional software RAID partitions
Before you can create a software RAID, you must partition your hard drive. Partitioning allows you
to divide your hard drive into isolated sections, where each section behaves as its own hard drive.
During the operating system installation, you are prompted to partition the hard drives from the
Disk Partitioning Setup screen. The Disk Partitioning Setup screen provides two selections:
• Automatically partition
• Manually partition with Disk Druid
NOTICE:
If you partition a drive that has existing data, the data will be lost.
If you do not want to partition your system yourself, choose Automatically partition and let the
installation program partition for you. To partition the drives manually, select Manually partition
with Disk Druid and click Next. Delete any existing devices and partitions by selecting them and
clicking Delete. You must delete the devices before deleting partitions.
Creating a Software RAID Boot Partition
1 To create a software RAID partition, click RAID and select Create a software RAID partition.
Click OK.
2 For the file system type, select Software RAID. Ensure that only one drive is selected for the
partition (for example, sda), the size is 100 MB, and select the Fixed Size box. Click OK
to continue.
3 Repeat steps 1 and 2 to create a RAID partition on the second hard drive (for example, sdb).