[NMLUG] More RAID Questions

[Ed at Heron-ent.com (Ed Heron)]

  My 2 cents...

  Software RAID eliminates the need for special hardware.  I also perceive 
that as a good thing.

  In either case, hardware or software, RAID re-syncing should be low 
priority and not reduce system performance.  However, I'd want to test it if 
it were important.

  RAID 5 (3 drives or more) should be the preferred goal.  You would get 
both mirroring, to avoid drive failures, and stripping, to increase device 
capacity cheaply.  However, unless you need a hugmongeous single partition, 
RAID 1 really should do you.

  I evaluated the RAID 1 idea briefly.  I concluded that mirrored servers 
would be the true ideal, from a fault-tolerant point of view.  As soon as I 
resolve configuration issues for all of the software I'll be running on my 
new servers, I'll be looking into methods for accomplishing it.  Many of my 
servers are more than 2 hours away and a failure would significantly degrade 
services.  RAID 1 only helps the system survive if the failure is a hard 
drive.