Installing MDK 9.1 and Gigabyte Raid

[ancient]

I am sitting here eating crow, for I was going to come here and do searches and solve my own problem. I felt a 79-year-old man should be able to easily solve his own problem. I know that I am computer illiterate but finding out what kind of raid to hit on the install should be easy, but then I thought finding out what an LG CD-ROM is would be also (which is the reason I am using 9.1 instead of 9.2). I knew I would have a lot to learn, but my age, it's going to take awhile. I feel, if I can get it installed, I can use the help section to solve at least 98 percent of my questions.

 

Gigabyte GA-7DpXDW+

2- AMD 1800 MP's

2000 GB ECC Cosair memory

G4 TI 4600

Creative Audigy 2

Promise Raid (lite) (I could not find it on the list provided in the install)

 

The question is, what do they call the promise Raid, in the list they provide during the install. It says that it cannot find my drives.

 

If no one wishes to help I will fully understand, for I also believe a person should do his homework before asking for help. I will continue trying to solve it.

Thank you very much

Ancient

Edited December 29, 2003 by ancient

[Ixthusdan]

Welcome to the Board!

 

I have not installed raid, but there will be others who have and will help. I just wanted to say that, at this board, there are no dumb questions and we are more interested in helping people learn linux than treating people with contempt! You have come to the best linux board on the internet.

 

Help is coming! :D

[AussieJohn]

Hey !!!! What do you mean Ancient ???? You are only 10yrs past me and I'm not ancient although some times I feel like it. Remember the expression is "you are only as old as you feel ............... Just make sure they are over 18 before you do "

 

Here is some info for you (and others) which may come in handy to understand what RAID is and does.

 

A RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Discs.

 

By connecting them in mode 0 (that is a zero and not an ooohhh) you use 2 or more Hard drives of the same capacity and connect them so that they operate as one big one equal the total of them e.g. 2 HDDs at 40 Gbs each makes a total of 80Gbs (a 30Gbs and a 40Gbs will give 60Gbs and not 80Gbs as you would expect------------see explanation near bottom of this post). When a string of data is sent to the hard drives, the first "bit" goes to beginning of the first HDD, the second "bit" goes to the beginning of second HDD. the third "bit" goes to the first HDD, the fourth "bit" goes to the second HDD, the fifth "bit" goes to the first HDD and so on etc. This method is called striping and makes for speedier movement of data TO and FROM the HDDs. Only major problem is that if one of the HDDs fail then you lose ALL your data because the HDD that did not fail has only every second bit of the data.

 

When you connect 2 HDDs as RAID1, you are connecting so as to record the exact same data to BOTH HDDs simultaneously. It is called mirroring (but it is a misnomer because the data on the second HDD is not reversed in any way such as in a mirror). This has the major advantage that if one of the HDDs fail then you still have an exact copy on the other one. In other words it is an automatic BackUp system.

 

Raid-0 is described as a Performance mode and Raid-1 is described as a security mode

 

Both can be combined using 4 or more HDDs. In doing this what you are doing is creating two pairs of striped sets that are each a copy of the other. this means that in the event of 1 HDD failure then your data is still safe and in the unlikely occurrence of 2 HDDs you still have 4 chances out of 6 possible combinations of your data still being safe.

 

I had 4 of 8Gbs HDDs running as Raid0+1 for 3.5yrs and only had one HDD fail so I never ever lost any data.

 

It is important to remember that ALL the HDDs in any Raid mode should be the same size because the system will set up to the size of the smallest HDD so the extra capacity of the others is wasted. It is also preferable that they be of the same type.

 

Now hopefully some one else can help us all in telling us how to set this up in Mandrake because my experience has only been with Raid in Windows 98SE and Windows 2000 Pro. I am now FULLY entrenched in MANDRAKE (1.5 yrs)

 

Cheers. John (69yrs young)

 

Ancient !!!!!! The cheek .

[ancient]

I wish to thank you gentleman for the warm welcome and kind words of encouragement.

There is one thing that I forgot to mention, and that is, I am using two identical hard drives -- 200 GB Maxtor IDE hard drive's, but I am using them as separate drives on the raid connectors .I am using one for music -- Opera and classical -- and various other things I wish to store. The other I am using for my OS and programs.

 

Thank you so much

ancient

[Pzatch]

You should be able to set them up as normal IDE drives if all else fails.

[AussieJohn]

Hello "Ancient". Happy New Year to you and to everyone out there.

 

So you are using the two drives as single drives and not in a Raid arrangement.

Obviously everything is working AOK at the moment.

 

The only Raid mode you could use without totally clearing and reformatting your Hard Drives and reinstalling everything all over again is RAID.1 i.e the two hard drives mirroring each other.

 

Prior to setting up RAID1 you would need to transfer EVERYTHING on your 2nd hard drive on to the 1st hard drive that contains your OS and programs. Are you using a dual OS boot setup, namely are you using both a Windows OS and a Mandrake or other Linux OS ???

 

If the answer is yes and the Raid system is By Promise Technology then I would suggest you go into Windows to do the raid setting up because I think the Promise system instruction is only written for Windows.

 

This is not a problem regarding your linux setup because when the Promise RAID1 is commenced, it faithfully copies every single bit of data (Linux and Windows) anywhere on the Main hard drive to exactly the same place on the presently empty 2nd hard drive so you end up with the two hard drives being identical .

 

You should then still have your dual boot setup.

 

Has anyone else got a Promise RAID Array (hardware) setup running under Linux (not a Linux software RAID system) if so could you please contribute with advice etc ????

 

Cheers . John (69yrs young)