Mini Linux software RAID howto

I'm assuming that you are using 4 SCSI disks: sdb, sdc, sdd and sde.
I'm also assuming that you're using Debian.

Do once

Do this once to install and create your array:

Create a partition on your disks
Install the RAID package:
```
apt-get install raidtools2
```

Create /etc/raidtab

raiddev /dev/md0
    raid-level              5
    nr-raid-disks           3
    nr-spare-disks          1
    persistent-superblock   1
    parity-algorithm        left-symmetric

    device                  /dev/sdb1
    raid-disk               0
    device                  /dev/sdc1
    raid-disk               1
    device                  /dev/sdd1
    raid-disk               2
    device                  /dev/sde1
    spare-disk              0

Add the RAID modules to the startscripts:

echo md >> /etc/modules
echo raid5 >> /etc/modules

And since we don't want to reboot to get these modules loaded, do:
```
modprobe md
modprobe raid5
```
Initialize the RAID array:
```
mkraid /dev/md0
```
Start the array:
```
/etc/init.d/raid2 start
```
...and create a filesystem on it:
```
mke2fs -j /dev/md0
```

Using the RAID array

When you want to use the raid:

mount /dev/md0 /mnt

Back to my Linux menu

Last update: June 7, 2004