I've been using mdadm to learn about software RAID configurations on Linux and I find it to be a great resource to play around with and do some hands on work. How I wish we were taught using these tools in college, rather than just being bombarded by all possible combinations of RAID.
Having the ability to setup and tear down VMs at the snap of a finger makes me think how fortunate CS students are nowadays. We had it tough. At the risk of digression, I sound like one of the Yorkshiremen from the classic Monty Python sketch - The Four Yorkshiremen
Statistics have shown that 85% of the audience, after clicking the above link have spent at least 45 minutes visiting the various sketches of Monty Python, including, but not limited to - Woody and tinny words, Argument Clinic and others.
And.... we are back. :)
This tutorial gives a gentle introduction to RAID and then builds up on the concepts and walks the reader through the mdadm tool. As that HOWTO is already delivering, I will not go into the details of it. The aim of this post is to inform about the pre-requisite setup for building RAIDs.
I am using Virtualbox with a VM running Ubuntu 10.10. For mdadm I have installed the mdadm tool (installation steps mentioned in the tutorial page).
As you are going to play with different RAID configurations, you will need to add multiple disks. For VirtualBox, go to the main menu, right click on the VM, go to settings and then to storage. Out there add 2 more SATA disks each of 1 GB - I used this value because I am going to partition each disk into 2 partitions of 512 MB each. If there are no new disks added to your system, then these disks will show up as /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc on your Linux box.
Boot up your VM. Become root. Execute the following command:
We are going to work with /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc - the 2 new disks that have been added. If you already had added other disks the device names may be different in your case - but one thing is for sure - for the new disks, the partition table will not exist. Hence for the new ones fdisk output will be something like this:
Having the ability to setup and tear down VMs at the snap of a finger makes me think how fortunate CS students are nowadays. We had it tough. At the risk of digression, I sound like one of the Yorkshiremen from the classic Monty Python sketch - The Four Yorkshiremen
Statistics have shown that 85% of the audience, after clicking the above link have spent at least 45 minutes visiting the various sketches of Monty Python, including, but not limited to - Woody and tinny words, Argument Clinic and others.
And.... we are back. :)
This tutorial gives a gentle introduction to RAID and then builds up on the concepts and walks the reader through the mdadm tool. As that HOWTO is already delivering, I will not go into the details of it. The aim of this post is to inform about the pre-requisite setup for building RAIDs.
I am using Virtualbox with a VM running Ubuntu 10.10. For mdadm I have installed the mdadm tool (installation steps mentioned in the tutorial page).
As you are going to play with different RAID configurations, you will need to add multiple disks. For VirtualBox, go to the main menu, right click on the VM, go to settings and then to storage. Out there add 2 more SATA disks each of 1 GB - I used this value because I am going to partition each disk into 2 partitions of 512 MB each. If there are no new disks added to your system, then these disks will show up as /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc on your Linux box.
Boot up your VM. Become root. Execute the following command:
# fdisk -lYou will see a partition table for /dev/sda - containing - /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, etc. - this is the first disk in which your OS is installed. We are not going to touch this disk.
We are going to work with /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc - the 2 new disks that have been added. If you already had added other disks the device names may be different in your case - but one thing is for sure - for the new disks, the partition table will not exist. Hence for the new ones fdisk output will be something like this:
