Friday Dream Projects Week 2: Linux Edition
My dream projects for this week:
- Linux Software RAID configurator tool - I have yet to see a good Linux tool for expressing, at a high level, that I want 4 mount points, with the 1st as RAID 1 /boot at xxx MB with ext3fs, the second as RAID 5 / at xxx GB with ext3fs, the third as /home at xxx GB with ext3fs, and the last at
GB as /var with ext3fs. Then, script the creation of the partitions, create the RAID mountpoints (/dev/md0…/dev/md ), and format the filesystems for me. Instead, I have to go through lots of menus, making sure everything is correct and uniform across drives - very painful when setting up a 5 disk RAID 5! (BTW, here is a great software RAID vs. hardware RAID thread at Slashdot from years ago) - X.org configuration wizard - Help me create the xorg.conf file by helping me identify and edit each device, then assemble the file in the proper format. Think of a Dell.com configurator for X.
- Custom Gentoo LiveCDs - combine the above two items into a Gentoo distribution that would allow for easy file server creation, with or without X.org
Know something I don’t? Post a comment and let me know about a solution I don’t know about.
Technorati Tags: dream projects, linux, gentoo
James @ July 20, 2007
I have had a software RAID 1 mirror that I was running on CentOS fail on me. Unfortunately we did not have proper backups so we decided to try to restore. One drive had completely failed and the other was only slightly corrupted, but the data was in such a logical mess that even hard drive recovery experts couldn’t get the data out. I definitely think it is worth the extra investment in hardware raid, simply to reduce complexity.
Andrew,
I can sympathize - I had a software RAID 1 fail as well, but it was due to a bad hardware controller (fried both drives at once), not due to the software RAID itself. Since then, I make sure to invest in reliable drive controllers first. The Slashdot article I mentioned talked about the downside of hardware RAID, as well as the upside, and is a great reference for making an informed decision either way.
And, as you mentioned, RAID 1 is not a backup solution, only a n availability solution.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Good point on having quality drive controllers, 3ware has worked great for us.