[mythtv-users] Should I use LVM on this new raid?

[Gene Stapp]

On 9/22/07, Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike at swm.pp.se> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 21 Sep 2007, Brian Foddy wrote:
>
> > Would people suggest I add LVM software on top of this,
> > or will I have enough flexibility with just the raid?  Also,
>
> Yes, you definately want to use LVM on top of the hardware raid you have
> from the card (it'll present itself as a single scsi drive to the OS).
>
> It'll give you the flexibility you might want in the future to do
> basically anything, otherwise you're locked into what the 3ware can do for
> you. It's really hard to do partitions on top of raid (due to the fact
> that there is a 2TB limit on most standard partitioning schemes), LVM
> solves that problem as well.
>
> Also, I would really suggest you buy a third drive and go for raid5
> directly if the 3ware card can't convert between raid0 and raid5.
>
> --
> Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se
> _______________________________________________



Just to let you know, you can use mdadm to do online capacity expansion. I
have used this feature at least 5 times now. I even added it to the RAID
wiki. I see no reason to spend an extra $400 dollars on a hardware raid
card. There isn't really any benefit to it for video storage and if the card
breaks you can't get to your data unless you buy another compatible card.
With my software raid setup, when I have gotten a new computer in the past I
just plug in the drives and I'm off
online capacity expansion wikipage of raid
guide<http://mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/RAID#Software_Raid_Online_Capacity_Expansion_.28OCE.29_.28for_raid_5_with_XFS.29>

if you need some hardware ideas, I have  pretty extensive raid setup, see my
wiki entry
Blackoper <http://mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/User:Blackoper>

Gene Stapp
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