Difference between revisions of "RAID"

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== Quick Overview ==
 
== Quick Overview ==
−
===Performance Expectations===
+
=== Common Modes ===
−
There are many opinions on what RAID level is best for performance, since it can vary greatly depending on many factors, but with all other things being equal, here's what's generally about the most common RAID levels:
+
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" style="border-collapse:collapse; border-color:#8eabd0; background:#e7edf5"
−
*RAID 5 is the slowest, but read the RAID5 section for ways to minimize this
+
|- style="background: lightsteelblue"
−
*RAID 1 is in the middle (speed is equivelent to not using RAID)
+
|+
−
*RAID 0 (and RAID 0+1, 10, 1+0, etc) is the fastest
+
! Level
 +
! Description
 +
! Minimum Disks
 +
! Space Efficiency
 +
! Fault Tolerance
 +
! Read Performance
 +
! Write Performance
 +
! Image
 +
|-
 +
| [[Wikipedia:RAID 0|RAID 0]]
 +
| '''Block-level Striping'''
 +
Provides improved performance and additional storage, but no redundancy. Reliability is worse than a single disk.
 +
| 2
 +
| {{YES|N}}
 +
| {{NO|0}}
 +
| {{YES|Nx}}
 +
| {{YES|Nx}}
 +
| [[Image:RAID 0.png|75px]]
 +
|-
 +
| [[Wikipedia:RAID 1|RAID 1]]
 +
| '''Direct Mirroring'''
 +
Provides improved read performance and redundancy, but no additional storage
 +
| 2
 +
| {{NO|1}}
 +
| {{YES|N-1}}
 +
| {{YES|Nx}}
 +
| {{NO|1x}}
 +
| [[Image:RAID 1.png|75px]]
 +
|-
 +
| [[Wikipedia:Non-standard_RAID_levels#IBM_ServeRAID_1E|RAID 1E]]
 +
| '''Data Duplication'''
 +
Pools disk space, and ensures data is stored on at least two disks.
 +
| 3
 +
| {{Partial|N/2}}
 +
| {{YES2|1<br>(worst case)}}
 +
| {{YES|Nx}}
 +
| {{Partial|N/2x}}
 +
| [[Image:RAID 1E.png|100px]]
 +
|-
 +
| [[Wikipedia:Nested_RAID_levels#RAID_0.2B1|RAID 0+1]]
 +
| '''Mirror of Stripes'''
 +
This is a nested array where a RAID 1 array is made using RAID 0 arrays
 +
| 4
 +
| {{Partial|N/2}}
 +
| {{Partial|1<br>(worst case)}}
 +
| {{YES|Nx}}
 +
| {{Partial|N/2x}}
 +
| [[Image:RAID 0+1.png|150px]]
 +
|-
 +
| [[Wikipedia:Nested_RAID_levels#RAID_10_.28RAID_1.2B0.29|RAID 10]]
 +
| '''Stripe of Mirrors'''
 +
This is a nested array where a RAID 0 array is made using RAID 1 arrays
 +
| 4
 +
| {{Partial|N/2}}
 +
| {{YES2|1<br>(worst case)}}
 +
| {{YES|Nx}}
 +
| {{Partial|N/2x}}
 +
| [[Image:RAID 10.png|150px]]
 +
|-
 +
| [[Wikipedia:RAID 5|RAID 5]]
 +
| '''Block-level Striping with Parity'''
 +
One block on each stripe is reserved for parity, which can be used to calculate missing data in the event of a drive failure.
 +
| 3
 +
| {{YES2|N-1}}
 +
| {{Partial|1}}
 +
| {{YES2|(N-1)x}}
 +
| {{Partial|(N-1)x <small>(best case)</small><br>1/2x <small>(worst case)</small>}}
 +
| [[Image:RAID 5.png|150px]]
 +
|-
 +
| [[Wikipedia:RAID 6|RAID 6]]
 +
| '''Block-level Striping with Double Parity'''
 +
Two blocks on each stripe are reserved for parity, which can be used to calculate missing data in the event of a drive failure.
 +
| 4
 +
| {{YES2|N-2}}
 +
| {{YES2|2}}
 +
| {{YES2|(N-2)x}}
 +
| {{Partial|(N-2)x <small>(best case)</small><br>1/2x <small>(worst case)</small>}}
 +
| [[Image:RAID 6.png|170px]]
 +
|-
 +
|}
  
−
For reading big files, like videos, RAID 5 can be quite fast.
+
===Which one do I choose?===
−
 
+
The choice of which RAID level to choose depends on the application it will be used for. The performance values in the table above are optimal conditions, but will differ depending on whether you want to optimize for throughput or operations. For raw throughput on bulk files, striping will be the fastest, and larger block sizes will reduce the load on the controller, further improving performance to a point. For small operations, independent disks are better, making mirroring, or striping with block sizes larger than that of the file, ideal.  Parity in RAID 5/6 causes additional problems for small writes, as anything smaller than the stripe size will require the entire stripe to be read, and the parity recomputed.
−
And here's why:
 
−
=====RAID 5=====
 
−
RAID 5 (striping with parity) is slow for writing and fast for reading. Writing is slow because your computer has to calculate parity for every write operation ''and then'' write that
 
−
parity to disk. This can be a considerable overhead with software RAID or budget RAID controllers. ''Parity'' is the distributed data that allows
 
−
you to lose any hard drive but still not lose data. Read speeds are very good, better than RAID 1.
 
−
 
 
−
You can significantly increase RAID 5 performance, sometimes even get it faster than RAID 1 performance, if you do one or more of the following:
 
−
*Use hardware RAID solution
 
−
*Use a Battery-Backed Write-back Cache, or BBWBC (only available on high-end RAID controllers). These only help data bursts, up to the size of the cache (typically 16-256 MB), not extended write operations.
 
−
*Add more disks
 
−
In general, unless you have server-class hardware and SCSI disks, you can always expect RAID 5 ''writing'' to be slower than RAID 1 or 0. ''Reading'' is very fast, can be similar to RAID 0.
 
−
 
 
−
If you use Linux to create big files sequentially, Linux MD RAID 5 is very fast, as there is no need to read the parity information, the parity information is calculated anew from the data of the new file. RAID 5 is then almost as fast as RAID 0.
 
−
 
 
−
=====RAID 1=====
 
−
RAID 1 (mirroring) is typically not faster nor slower than using a single disk for writing. For reading it could use all the disks in parallel and thus improve the performance.
 
−
 
 
−
=====RAID 0=====
 
−
RAID 0 (striping) is the fastest with reading and writing because your computer reads and writes different data to two disks at the same time, theoretically doubling the performance of RAID 1. (Note: RAID 0 ''is not'' the same as disks spanning, or extending, a volume. Spanning is
 
−
not RAID and provides no performance change or redundancy.) Software RAID 0 can be nearly as fast as hardware RAID 0. You can significantly increase the speed of RAID 0 by:
 
−
*Addings more disks
 
−
 
 
−
=====RAID 0+1 (or 1+0, 01, 10)=====
 
−
RAID 0+1 (mirroring a striped set) is half as fast as RAID 0 with the same number of disks. Like RAID 0, you can make it even faster by adding more disks. Note: There is some argument over the difference in performance between RAID 10 and RAID 01. In other words, should you stripe
 
−
a mirror, or mirror a stripe? You can safely ignore those that argue this, as it really doesn't matter on the subject of '''performance'''. Most hardware vendors stripe first; 0+1. However, on the subject of '''redundancy''', RAID 10 has higher chances than RAID 0+1 of surviving certain hardware failures.
 
−
 
 
−
===== RAID10,F2=====
 
−
Linux MD RAID10 in the F2 layout is as fast as RAID 0 for reading, and half as fast as RAID 0 for writing.
 
−
Please note that Linux MD raid10 is something different from what is called RAID10 or RAID1+0 in other places. First, this is not a nested raid of first a RAID1 and then a RAID0; instead this is one set of array only, created by only one mdadm command. Second, you may make a striped and mirrored array consisting of only 2 drives, where traditional RAID1+0 requires 4 drives. This means that the reading speed of Linux MD
 
−
raid10 (in the f2 layout) has double the reading speed compared to RAID1 and RAID1+0, given the same number of drives.
 
−
 
 
−
===Capacity===
 
−
Assuming all disk are of equal size (If this isn't the case, use the size of your smallest disk), where N = number of disks and C = Disk Capacity:
 
−
*RAID 0 = N x C (Total capacity of all disks, or 100% efficient)
 
−
*RAID 1 = 1 x C  (Capacity of one disk, efficiency varies, no more than 50% efficient, decreasing as drives are added)
 
−
*RAID 5 = (N x C) - C  (Total capacity minus one disk, efficiency varies, but no less than 66% and increases as drives are added)
 
−
*RAID 0+1, RAID 1+0 or Linux MD raid10 = (N x C) / 2  (Half the total capacity of all disks, or 50% efficient)
 
−
 
 
−
===Redundancy===
 
−
*RAID 0 = No redundancy. Losing any disk results in total data loss
 
−
*RAID 1 = Lose all but 1 disk without any data loss.
 
−
*RAID 5 = Lose 1 disk without any data loss.
 
−
*RAID 0+1 = Lose up to half your disks (''if'' they are on the same stripe set) without any data loss. If one disk from each stripe set is lost, all data is lost.
 
−
*RAID10 (Linux MD) = Lose up to half of your disks, similar to RAID 1+0, but for bigger number of disks the chances of surviving more disk crashes are better, as all disks are in one set of disks, instead of a RAID 0 array of a number of RAID 1 arrays.
 
−
 
 
−
RAID 0+1 and RAID 1+0 may look very similar, but there is a distinct difference when it comes to redundancy. In a 4-disk configuration, both
 
−
can survive losing 1 disk without any data loss. And both configurations will fail if you lose 3 disks. However, the probabilities of losing
 
−
the RAID array are different if you lose 2 disks. The Linux MD raid10 has the same properties ad RAID 1+0.
 
−
 
 
−
The number of combinations of 2-drive losses is C(4,2) = 4!/(2! * 2!) = 6. This means that if 2 drives fail, there only 6 different ways this can happen.
 
−
 
 
−
To determine the probabilities, you must count the number of configurations that would actually cause the entire RAID volume to go down.
 
−
 
 
−
==== RAID 0+1 (4 disks) ====
 
−
<pre>
 
−
      [----RAID 1------]
 
−
  ____|____        ____|____
 
−
| RAID 0  |      | RAID 0  |
 
−
|____|____|      |____|____|
 
−
</pre>
 
−
 
 
−
If one (out of two) drives from the first stripe fails '''''AND''''' one (out of two) drives from the second stripe fails, then an entire RAID 0+1 array will go down.
 
−
* x|ok --- x|ok
 
−
* x|ok --- ok|x
 
−
* ok|x --- x|ok
 
−
* ok|x --- ok|x
 
−
Since there are 4 ways this can happen, P<sub>failure(0+1)</sub> = 4/6 = 67%
 
−
 
 
−
==== RAID 1+0 (4 disks) ====
 
−
<pre>
 
−
      [----RAID 0------]
 
−
  ____|____        ____|____
 
−
| RAID 1  |      | RAID 1  |
 
−
|____|____|      |____|____|
 
−
</pre>
 
−
 
 
−
If both drives on the first mirror fail '''''OR''''' both drives on the second mirror fail, then an entire RAID 10 array will go down.
 
−
* x|x --- ok|ok
 
−
* ok|ok --- x|x
 
−
Since there are 2 ways this can happen, P<sub>failure(10)</sub> = 1 + 1  / C(4,2) = 2/6 = 33%
 
−
 
 
−
This means that RAID 10 has twice the probability of surviving the loss of two drives than RAID 0+1.
 
−
 
 
−
==== RAID10,F2 (4 disks) ====
 
−
 
 
−
The Linux MD raid10 has another layout, for an array of 4 drives created with
 
−
 
 
−
  mdadm -C /dev/md0 -n 4 -l 10 -p f2 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1
 
−
 
 
−
will give the following layout:
 
−
<pre>
 
−
    [------------MD RAID10-----------]
 
−
  ___|___  ____|___    ___|___    ___|___
 
−
| disk1 |  | disk2 |  | disk3 |  | disk4 |
 
−
|___|___|  |___|___|  |___|___|  |___|___|
 
−
</pre>
 
−
 
 
−
This layout has the same probability of survival for  2 disk crash as the RAID 1+0 mentioned above, namely 67%.
 
−
 
 
−
===SCSI vs IDE===
 
−
In general, SCSI outperforms IDE in RAID arrays because it is much better at handling multiple data reads/writes at the same time. If you must use IDE, use the fastest controllers aviailable (SATA) and the fastest disks available. Also, put each disk on it's own controller; avoid placing a disk on both channels of any IDE controller.
 
  
−
'''Notes'''
+
For the system disk, reliability and IOPS are going to be favored over raw throughput, so RAID 1 or RAID 10 would be best suited. RAID 1E is another less standard alternative which can be done using Linux MDRAID in 'f2' mode.
−
* At a given platter RPM, it's not the drive that performs better, but the subsystem. SCSI has the advantage of greater availability of higher RPM (10K and 15K) drives. Though they can be found with SATA interfaces.
 
−
* SATA also provides command queueing, the method used by SCSI to better handle multiple access requests.
 
−
* SATA uses an individual cable per drive, which means it handles cable failure better than SCSI.
 
  
−
===Which one do I choose?===
+
For recording disks, MythTV will be storing bulk files. Normally RAID 5 or RAID 6 would be ideal for such a scenario, however MythTV may be recording multiple files simultaneously in small chunks, and the write behavior of parity sets will result in very poor performance in any storage system not using a non-volatile cache. The recommended method would actually be to not use RAID at all, and instead define the drives independently using [[Storage Groups]].
−
If you don't care about your data, go with RAID 0 for speed.  
 
−
If you don't want to lose your data, RAID 1 or MD raid10,f2 for 2 disks, raid10,f2 is here double as fast for reading. If you have 3 or more
 
−
disks, it's really a toss up between RAID 5 (minimum 3 disks) and RAID 1+0 (minimum 4 disks, multiples of two thereafter), or raid10,f2 where
 
−
you can have also an odd number of drives. It comes down to speed and cost. If you don't need speed and don't have much money, go with RAID  
 
−
5. If you need speed, get the money and go with RAID 1+0 or MD raid10,f2 (raid10,f2 is double as fast for reading than RAID 1+0). In regards
 
−
to Myth, several have tried RAID 5 and the results are mixed. If you only have 1 or 2 SD tuners, RAID 5 should be fine. Once you get multiple HD tuners or multiple frontends, RAID 5 often can't keep up. Your results may vary.
 
  
−
== RAID For Recordings Drive ==
+
For bulk storage of non-recorded media, such as music, pictures, and videos, the usage will be nearly all read only.  RAID 5 or 6 would be a good trade off between redundancy and space efficiency. RAID 5 can only handle a single drive failure before data loss, so for larger arrays (6-drives or larger), RAID 6 would be a better option.
−
A few Options exist for using RAID for the recording drives, depending on the goal you have for your recordings; speed, redundency or both. RAID 0 or raid10,f2 will allow you to gain the most speed from your drives (raid10,f2 will also give you redundancy), RAID 01 (or RAID 0+1) will give you some speed and 1:1 redundency. RAID 5 gives you the most capacity for your money, but write speeds can be pretty bad, especially if you write more files at the same time. If you only record or play one file, then RAID5 by the Linux kernel is quite fast, and about twice as fast as RAID1 and RAID1+0, both for writing and reading a sequential big file.
 
−
 
 
−
== RAID For Archives Drive ==
 
−
Having an independent drive array for archival of shows one wishes to keep allows the user to setup a RAID for speed for the recordings drive
 
−
and a RAID for backup for the archival drive. This way, once a show has been recorded, commercial flagged and possibly even transcoded to another format or for permanent commercial removal, it can be moved to the archive. In such a case, RAID 5, raid10,f2 and RAID 1+0 make the most sense. If you plan on a large amount of access to the archive, a raid10,f2 or RAID 1+0 may make more sense as it will most easily keep up with the transfer rate requirement while still allowing for redundency, but at the cost of the price for obtaining the number of drives requried. RAID 5 will have a slight speed advantage over just having numerous drives (JBOD, Just a Bunch Of Disks in hardware RAID, linear in mdadm
 
−
), but will also have the advantage of getting the most archival bang-for-your-buck while still maintaining parity for the case of a lost drive.
 
  
 
== Setup (Software RAID) ==
 
== Setup (Software RAID) ==
Line 216: Line 179:
  
 
=== Generate Config File ===
 
=== Generate Config File ===
−
Now we need to setup '/etc/mdadm.conf', this can be done by copying the output of
+
Now we need to setup ''/etc/mdadm.conf'' (Ubuntu 9.10 ''/etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf''), this can be done by copying the output of
 
<pre><nowiki>
 
<pre><nowiki>
 
# mdadm --detail --scan
 
# mdadm --detail --scan
Line 225: Line 188:
 
devices=/dev/sda1,/dev/sdb1,/dev/sdc1
 
devices=/dev/sda1,/dev/sdb1,/dev/sdc1
 
</nowiki></pre>
 
</nowiki></pre>
 +
 +
'''Note:''' the device names used by md raid commands might not be identical to those seen by other Linux commands (e.g. cfdisk).  ''mdadm'' assumes that all of your partition names are sequential with no gaps.  If you use 2 primary partitions they will be called /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2, and a logical partitions this is then called /dev/sdb5.  ''mdadm'' will report these partitions as sda1, sda2, and sda3.
  
 
=== RAID Filesystem Creation ===
 
=== RAID Filesystem Creation ===
Line 233: Line 198:
 
For XFS (replace md0 with your final RAID array if using a mixed mode array),
 
For XFS (replace md0 with your final RAID array if using a mixed mode array),
 
<pre><nowiki>
 
<pre><nowiki>
−
mkfs.xfs -b size=4096 -L Recordings /dev/md0 -f
+
mkfs.xfs -l size=64m -d agcount=4 -i attr=2,maxpct=5 -L Recordings /dev/md0 -f
 
</nowiki></pre>
 
</nowiki></pre>
 +
These performance parameters, as well as the mount settings in ''/etc/fstab'' are also documented on the [[XFS Filesystem]] page.
 +
 
or for JFS,
 
or for JFS,
 
<pre><nowiki>
 
<pre><nowiki>
 
mkfs.jfs -c -L Recordings /dev/md0 -f
 
mkfs.jfs -c -L Recordings /dev/md0 -f
 
</nowiki></pre>
 
</nowiki></pre>
−
(It is not recommended to use a JFS partition for your boot drive when using GRUB)
+
It is not recommended to use a JFS partition for your boot drive (/boot, or if no separate /boot the / (root) partition) when using GRUB.
  
 
=== Mounting ===
 
=== Mounting ===
 
Thats it, now you are ready to mount the filesystem! You can add a line to your /etc/fstab similar to,
 
Thats it, now you are ready to mount the filesystem! You can add a line to your /etc/fstab similar to,
 
<pre><nowiki>
 
<pre><nowiki>
−
/dev/md0      /MythTV/tv            xfs    defaults       0       0
+
/dev/md0      /MythTV/tv            xfs    defaults,allocsize=512m  0 0
 
</nowiki></pre>
 
</nowiki></pre>
−
or
+
for xfs (above), or for jfs (below):
 
<pre><nowiki>
 
<pre><nowiki>
 
/dev/md0      /MythTV/tv            jfs    defaults        0      0
 
/dev/md0      /MythTV/tv            jfs    defaults        0      0
Line 295: Line 262:
  
 
=== Spinning down hard drives ===
 
=== Spinning down hard drives ===
−
Area is outdated. See wiki entry on spindown drives here: http://mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Spindown_drives
+
Area is outdated. See relevent information at:
 +
* [[Power saving#Hard Drive Spin Down|Power saving]] - native spindown using '''hdparm'''
 +
* [[Spindown drives]] - 3rd party '''spindown''' daemon
  
 
= Links =
 
= Links =

Latest revision as of 18:10, 15 October 2011

Wikipedia-logo-en.png
Wikipedia has an article on:
RAID or Redundant Array of Independent Disks is a mechanism for using multiple disk drives to provide redundant file storage.

Quick Overview

Common Modes

Level Description Minimum Disks Space Efficiency Fault Tolerance Read Performance Write Performance Image
RAID 0 Block-level Striping

Provides improved performance and additional storage, but no redundancy. Reliability is worse than a single disk.

2 N 0 Nx Nx RAID 0.png
RAID 1 Direct Mirroring

Provides improved read performance and redundancy, but no additional storage

2 1 N-1 Nx 1x RAID 1.png
RAID 1E Data Duplication

Pools disk space, and ensures data is stored on at least two disks.

3 N/2 1
(worst case) 		Nx N/2x RAID 1E.png
RAID 0+1 Mirror of Stripes

This is a nested array where a RAID 1 array is made using RAID 0 arrays

4 N/2 1
(worst case) 		Nx N/2x RAID 0+1.png
RAID 10 Stripe of Mirrors

This is a nested array where a RAID 0 array is made using RAID 1 arrays

4 N/2 1
(worst case) 		Nx N/2x RAID 10.png
RAID 5 Block-level Striping with Parity

One block on each stripe is reserved for parity, which can be used to calculate missing data in the event of a drive failure.

3 N-1 1 (N-1)x (N-1)x (best case)
1/2x (worst case) 		RAID 5.png
RAID 6 Block-level Striping with Double Parity

Two blocks on each stripe are reserved for parity, which can be used to calculate missing data in the event of a drive failure.

4 N-2 2 (N-2)x (N-2)x (best case)
1/2x (worst case) 		RAID 6.png

Which one do I choose?

The choice of which RAID level to choose depends on the application it will be used for. The performance values in the table above are optimal conditions, but will differ depending on whether you want to optimize for throughput or operations. For raw throughput on bulk files, striping will be the fastest, and larger block sizes will reduce the load on the controller, further improving performance to a point. For small operations, independent disks are better, making mirroring, or striping with block sizes larger than that of the file, ideal. Parity in RAID 5/6 causes additional problems for small writes, as anything smaller than the stripe size will require the entire stripe to be read, and the parity recomputed.

For the system disk, reliability and IOPS are going to be favored over raw throughput, so RAID 1 or RAID 10 would be best suited. RAID 1E is another less standard alternative which can be done using Linux MDRAID in 'f2' mode.

For recording disks, MythTV will be storing bulk files. Normally RAID 5 or RAID 6 would be ideal for such a scenario, however MythTV may be recording multiple files simultaneously in small chunks, and the write behavior of parity sets will result in very poor performance in any storage system not using a non-volatile cache. The recommended method would actually be to not use RAID at all, and instead define the drives independently using Storage Groups.

For bulk storage of non-recorded media, such as music, pictures, and videos, the usage will be nearly all read only. RAID 5 or 6 would be a good trade off between redundancy and space efficiency. RAID 5 can only handle a single drive failure before data loss, so for larger arrays (6-drives or larger), RAID 6 would be a better option.

Setup (Software RAID)

For setting up hardware RAID, see your RAID controller's documentation. The array will then appear as a single disk within your OS. For software RAID, creating a RAID array with mdadm is quite easy. The Linux RAID HOWTO Performance or Software-RAID HOWTO Performance section will help here, as different RAID types have different best values for chunk and block sizes. Since we will be dealing with only large files (recorded mpegs. music files, etc) it is recommended to choose the largest chunk and block value that combine for the highest performance.

Partitioning

Before a RAID array can be created on a disk it must be partitioned, you can use cfdisk, fdisk, sfdisk or parted. The easiest way is to create a full drive partition.


Important.png Note: You must however, also set the type to "fd" or "Linux raid autodetect"!

RAID 5

The following line will create a RAID array with the following characteristics:

  • RAID 5 on /dev/md0
  • 3 drives, /dev/sda1, /dev/sdb1, and dev/sdc1
  • chunk size = 32K
  • no spare
  • verbose level of output
# mdadm -v --create /dev/md0 --force --chunk=32 --level=raid5 \
      --spare-devices=0 --raid-devices=3 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1

RAID 1+0

RAID 1+0 is really the creation of 2 or more arrays. First you create the number of RAID 1, mirrored, arrays you wish to have, 

# mdadm -v --create /dev/md0 --chunk=32 --level=raid1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1
# mdadm -v --create /dev/md1 --chunk=32 --level=raid1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1

and so on until you have the number of drives you wish to concatenate into a RAID 0.

Once these have completed building (see below), you can create the RAID 0, striped, array, 

# mdadm -v --create /dev/md2 --chunk=32 --level=raid0 --raid-devices=2 /dev/md0 /dev/md1

RAID10,F2

The Linux MD raid10 has another way to be created - it uses only one mdadm command. For an array of 4 drives use: 

# mdadm -C /dev/md0 --chunk=256 -n 4 -l 10 -p f2 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1

Note that this can even be done with only 2 drives (-n 2). For newer drives as of 2008 it is recommended by the people on the linux-raid kernel mailing list to use chunk sizes between 256 kiB and 1 MiB.

RAID Creation Confirmation

You will be prompted with the RAID parameters, and asked to continue, 

mdadm: layout defaults to left-symmetric
mdadm: /dev/sdc1 appears to contain a reiserfs file system
    size = -192K
mdadm: size set to 293049600K
Continue creating array?

Status of RAID Creation

Upon confirmation you will only see 

mdadm: array /dev/md0 started.

Once you run the command to create the RAID array, if you want to see the progress run, 

# cat /proc/mdstat

and you will see something along the lines of, 

# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [linear] [raid0] [raid1] [raid5] [multipath] [raid6] [raid10]
md0 : active raid5 sdc1[3] sdb1[1] sda1[0]
      586099200 blocks level 5, 32k chunk, algorithm 2 [3/2] [UU_]
      [=>...................]  recovery =  5.8% (17266560/293049600) finish=69.8min speed=65760K/sec

unused devices: <none>

Tip: To watch this progress over time, use: 

# watch cat /proc/mdstat

Generate Config File

Now we need to setup /etc/mdadm.conf (Ubuntu 9.10 /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf), this can be done by copying the output of 

# mdadm --detail --scan

to '/etc/mdadm.conf', which should end up looking similar to, 

ARRAY /dev/md0 level=raid5 num-devices=3 UUID=2d918524:a32c7867:11db7af5:0053440d
devices=/dev/sda1,/dev/sdb1,/dev/sdc1

Note: the device names used by md raid commands might not be identical to those seen by other Linux commands (e.g. cfdisk). mdadm assumes that all of your partition names are sequential with no gaps. If you use 2 primary partitions they will be called /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2, and a logical partitions this is then called /dev/sdb5. mdadm will report these partitions as sda1, sda2, and sda3.

RAID Filesystem Creation

Once your RAID array is created you can place a filesystem on it. JFS and XFS are the two recommended filesystems for large file arrays, espe cially for the recordings drive in Myth. Again, we will use The Software-RAID HOWTO [http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO-9.html Per formance] section and go with a 4K (4096) block size.

For XFS (replace md0 with your final RAID array if using a mixed mode array), 

mkfs.xfs -l size=64m -d agcount=4 -i attr=2,maxpct=5 -L Recordings /dev/md0 -f

These performance parameters, as well as the mount settings in /etc/fstab are also documented on the XFS Filesystem page.

or for JFS, 

mkfs.jfs -c -L Recordings /dev/md0 -f

It is not recommended to use a JFS partition for your boot drive (/boot, or if no separate /boot the / (root) partition) when using GRUB.

Mounting

Thats it, now you are ready to mount the filesystem! You can add a line to your /etc/fstab similar to, 

/dev/md0       /MythTV/tv             xfs     defaults,allocsize=512m  0 0

for xfs (above), or for jfs (below): 

/dev/md0       /MythTV/tv             jfs     defaults        0       0

which will mount the filesystem upon boot and allow the automount option of mount to work, so go ahead and mount the filesystem, 

# mount -a

Monitoring

Most distributions have an init.d daemon setup to monitor your mdadm arrays that will monitor your arrays and allow you to be notified when anything of note occurs.

Software Raid Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) (for raid 5 with XFS)

Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) allows you to add another hard drive to an already defined and set raid array. For example adding a fifth drive to a 4 drive raid 5 array. OCE reshapes the data so it will span all 5 drives and then allows you to use a file system grow command to make use of the new space. This is all done while the raid system is active and even allows you to continue to use your drives while you are adding a new drive. Previously this feature was available on high end hardware raid cards only.

I was able to do a raid 5 disk expansion in mdadm software raid with no ill effects. Following this page as a guide and it worked perfectly. Took about 6 hours to reshape the array. From 300gb x 4 raid 5 to 300gb x 5 raid 5. No lvm just an md0 mdadm device and I was still able to make 2 simultaneous HD recordings and watch an HD recording while this was going on.

page used as guide: 

http://scotgate.org/?p=107

for me the process was: 

mdadm --add /dev/md0 /dev/sde1

This would be different for each user based on the name of the raid filesystem and the drive you are wanting to add to it.

then: 

mdadm --grow /dev/md0 --raid-devices=5

to find details about your raid reshaping status use: 

cat /proc/mdstat

to speed up reshaping use (fill in whatever speed you want where the 100000 is. Default is 10000 : 

echo -n 100000 > /proc/sys/dev/raid/speed_limit_max

The speed_limit_max entry there controls how fast the raid array rebuilds (how much of the array's bandwidth is available to the rebuild process). Make that bandwidth number higher and it goes faster but uses more of the throughput of the hard drives (leaving less available to say Myth recording on the degraded array). The array will be in a degraded state until reshaping is finished.

Now its time to grow your xfs filesystem (or substitute for your growing file system): 

xfs_growfs (path to mounted raid filesystem)

Spinning down hard drives

Area is outdated. See relevent information at:

Links

Great page with information on the different hardware and software raid chipsets, their current linux support

Wikipedia Entry for RAID

mdadm MAN page (via man-wiki)

Software-RAID HOWTO

Linux MD RAID HOWTO

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