new raid array

[Irwin]

Hi. I am new to RAID, but am getting started. I have a Intel RAID card
in a server I bought off Craigslist. I set up a new RAID 1 array with
the two 26GB SCSI drives, which went successfully, and it
automatically set up a 2 GB FAT partition and left the rest blank. I
did not ask it to set it up that way, it just did it, I guess it does
that automatically.

My question is what to do with the partition it created? Since it
created it without me asking, does it expect or need me to keep it.
The instructions say to next install Red Hat, which is supported and
what I will do. I guess during the install, one just deletes the FAT
partition?

Thanks,
Irwin

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi. I am new to RAID, but am getting started. I have a Intel RAID card
in a server I bought off Craigslist. I set up a new RAID 1 array with
the two 26GB SCSI drives, which went successfully, and it
automatically set up a 2 GB FAT partition and left the rest blank. I
did not ask it to set it up that way, it just did it, I guess it does
that automatically.

It definitely should not. RAID is completely filesystem agnostic.

My question is what to do with the partition it created? Since it
created it without me asking, does it expect or need me to keep it.
The instructions say to next install Red Hat, which is supported and
what I will do. I guess during the install, one just deletes the FAT
partition?

Were these disks part of the same RAID set previously? If not,
then thiscontroler seems not to be a general purpose RAID controller
and may cause problems. You can of course try to delete the
partition. I would advise to do at least some tests with removing
disks before you try this thing.

Arno

 

[Irwin]

It definitely should not. RAID is completely filesystem agnostic.


Were these disks part of the same RAID set previously? If not,
then thiscontroler seems not to be a general purpose RAID controller
and may cause problems. You can of course try to delete the
partition. I would advise to do at least some tests with removing
disks before you try this thing.

Arno

It did have some partitions on it, but they were either empty or
corrupt when I got it. So I deleted the drives from the array with the
console utility, and rebuilt a new RAID 1 array with the built in
utility. It said it would use the entire drives, and destroy all data,
I thought. I guess I can wipe them out and try it again.

IMF

 

[Arno Wagner]

It did have some partitions on it, but they were either empty or
corrupt when I got it. So I deleted the drives from the array with the
console utility, and rebuilt a new RAID 1 array with the built in
utility. It said it would use the entire drives, and destroy all data,
I thought. I guess I can wipe them out and try it again.

Aha. My guess is that it did not actually delete the disk contents,
just copied one disk to the other. The master disk must have
had that parition on it. In that case, you can just delete the
partiton and create your own.

Arno

 

[Irwin]

Aha. My guess is that it did not actually delete the disk contents,
just copied one disk to the other. The master disk must have
had that parition on it. In that case, you can just delete the
partiton and create your own.

Arno- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes, I think you are right. I put a file in the partition, then went
and removed the drives from the logical array and rebuilt the array.
The partition and file were still there at the end. Even though it
clearly said that it would destroy all the data. I guess that is just
a "cover your butt" thing to say, lawyers made them say it. There is
something in the manual about certain array construction methods being
non-destructive, so I guess this is one.

Thanks,
IMF

 

[Arno Wagner]

Yes, I think you are right. I put a file in the partition, then went
and removed the drives from the logical array and rebuilt the array.
The partition and file were still there at the end. Even though it
clearly said that it would destroy all the data.

Pretty conclusive, indeed.

I guess that is just
a "cover your butt" thing to say, lawyers made them say it. There is
something in the manual about certain array construction methods being
non-destructive, so I guess this is one.

Thanks,

No problem.

Arno