[CentOS] Re: software raid

Tue Apr 3 17:22:14 UTC 2007
Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com>

Scott Silva wrote:

> You are better off with software raid unless you buy those systems with the
> add-in 3ware card. Looking around the net, the only software raid solution
> that I see that says it supports hot-swap and auto-reconstruction is EVMS
> (evms.sourceforge.net). But RedHat (and CentOS) don't ship with EVMS.
> 
> I couldn't find anything to say whether the linux MD code does or doesn't
> support hotswap.

The MD code talks to linux partition devices and doesn't need to know 
anything about hotswaping itself.  A hotswap cage just means that the 
power and data connections are made in an order that won't hurt the 
hardware, leaving the question of whether the kernel will notice the new 
disk device when you plug it in.  If it does, and either assigns devices 
to existing partitions or you fdisk it, then you'll be able to add it 
into a software array with mdadm.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com