Perhaps I am wrong but I feel that my question didn't receive an answer yet; the discussion digressed a bit. So, let me rephrase my question: Which one is better, RAID devices created on top of partitions or partitions created on top of RAID devices? By "better" I mean under the aspects of data security, performance and ability to recover from a disk crash. Thank you again. >I am about to begin the installation of a small server (no more than 20 >users), using CentOS with Samba to authenticate Windows XP workstations. A >question arises about the organization of the filesystem. I hope that more >experienced and knowledgeable users here will be able to give me some >precious advice. > > I have 2 120GB SATA disks on which to install the OS. I want to create the > following partitions: > > /boot > / > /tmp > /var > /home > /swap > > Two options are now present to me: > > - Create a single RAID 1 device with both entire disks and then partition > on top > - Create several RAID devices, one for each partition (md0, md1, md2 and > so forth) > > Which one would be better from the points of view of performance, security > and data recoverability?