[Samba] Low cost additional storage on a Samba server

[Michal Dobroczynski]

Hello,
I can only confirm - yes - _use_ linux soft raid... do not believe all
these "smart RAID5 hw cards" :)

Regarding the machines "bought in 2008" - can you please tell me if
you have a separate controller (I am interested in brand/model) for
the drives or you are using onboard chip?

Regards,
Michal

2009/4/28 John Drescher <drescherjm at gmail.com>:
> On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 8:19 AM, Gary Dale <garydale at rogers.com> wrote:
>> Easiest way is to implement software RAID on your current server.
>> - add 2 (or more) new drives partitioned identically to your current drive
>> (unless you want to replace your existing drive)
>>  - partition type is fd (RAID)
>> - create RAID 5 arrays using the new drives & partitions (except for /boot
>> which should be on a RAID 1 array)
>>  - common setup is (but use whatever partition setup you currently have):
>>    - /boot --> RAID 1
>>   - / --> 20G RAID 5
>>   - /home --> rest of space
>>  - tell mdadm that 1 drive is missing from each array
>> - copy the files from each partition on your current drive to the RAID
>> partitions on the new array
>> - update grub to use the new RAID arrays
>> - reboot into new array
>> - if it works, add your original drive (or its replacement) into the RAID
>> array(s)
>>
>> Needless to say, back up everything before starting. Creating a RAID array
>> is safe but mistakes happen and hardware fails.
>>
>> Benefit of RAID over NAS is
>> - don't need to change client setups
>> - can be expanded by adding new drives into array
>> - speed on reads
>> - protection against hard drive failure
>>
>> Google Linux RAID setup for detailed howtos.
>>
>
> That is pretty much what I do. In the spring of 2008 I was adding 4
> TB+ raid 5 dual core servers (using 750GB drives) with 4 or 8GB of RAM
> for under $2000 US. Now you can easily get a quad core with 7 or 8TB
> for the same price..
>
> I highly recommend linux software raid (unlike windows software raid
> which is horribly broken performance wise) linux software raid
> performs well. These 4.X TB raid 5 machines I bought in 2008 write at
> over 200 MB/s and read at 300MB/s and they do this at less than 8 %
> CPU usage on a single core.
>
> John
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