[CentOS] Advice on partitioning a Dell MD1200 disk array

[Paul Tader]

>
> The second MD1200 will be used to backup the first, using BackupPC and
> for other storage purposes.
>
> As I won't know the storage requirements for the "backup partition"
> and they will probably change over time anyway. I was thinking of
> using LVM for it. So how to partition the MD1200 for LVM. I don't want
> to put all 12 disks in  a RAID5 and put a LVM volume on it. Can I
> split it into 2 RAID5 and have a LVM volume spanning both.
>

Just a thought about the backup volume.

Because it going to be used for backups and your retirement (congrats!) I
would configure one partition and no volume management on top.  Why? 
Because backups are like insurance policies.  That are not fun and no one
reviews them, but when you need them, you really hope that everything is
in order.  So you don't want the next admin to find out several months or
years down the road that the backup software ran out of space and has been
failing to back anything up for the previous few months.