Text 16570, 83 rader
Skriven 2006-03-18 10:27:34 av Jeff Guerdat (1:229/2000)
  Kommentar till text 16545 av MARTIN ATKINS (1:123/140)
Ärende: need time?
==================
MARTIN ATKINS -> JEFF GUERDAT wrote:
 JG>> Too much work - I'd hafta try to compile a RAID driver using a
 JG>> proprietary module that hasn't been updated.

 MA> I don't understand this. Can you point me to some docs about what
 MA> a RAID driver is.

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive/Independent disks.  There  are
various levels of RAID, some for performance, some for data integrity and some
for both.  There are also two basic ways to set up RAID, one with hardware
(requires a chipset that makes the attached devices appear to be one target
drive) or software (ala built into Linux and any NT-class  Windows OS).  My
4-port (four drives)  Promise RAID controller chipset is built into the
motherboard (as is an Intel 2-port controller).

I chose to use RAID 0 which is a performance mode.  It stripes data across all
drives used (I have 3), writing small blocks on  each one sequentially.  This
speeds up the process since the drives have to write only 1/3 of the data (in
my case) which the controller sends to each drive simultaneously.  My
benchmarks show a 3x performance increase over use of a single drive, which is
exactly what I'm after.

However, there are RAID controllers and then there are RAID controllers.  As it
turns out, mine is actually a software-based  controller  with a hardware
accelerator.   So, to use it, I have to have a driver that will communicate
with the OS as well as the hardware.  Silly me thought that I had an
all-hardware setup which would require no such driver.   (I've used RAID for
years at work for redundancy and  data protection and, with one exception, all
were hardware and showed up as one SCSI device on the bus.   Software was only
used to manage the array.)

So, that's a lot of words say that I need a driver to use with any advanced OS.
  It would have been much easier if it were a full hardware-driven chipset.

 JG>> I'd just use the SMP
 JG>> kernel but it's the disk that gets me.

 MA> I'm not trying to be APITA but what has Send Mail Protocol
 MA> got to do with this? If for some reason you can't install XP
 MA> say for licensing reasons then VMware is the best option.

You're mistaking SMP (Symmetric Multiple Processors) for SMTP (Simple Mail
Transport Protocol).  Your statement was that dual CPUs could be the problem
and I was responding that that was no problem at all since there are SMP
kernels available for most/all current Linux distros.

BTW, VMware virtual machines still require whatever licenses the OS requires to
run them  on a dedicated machine - no difference.

 JG>> No problem since I can use
 JG>> VMware's virtual machine for Linux which works the nuts...

 MA> Ok! If it works don't fix it. ;) I'm still at a lose as to why
 MA> you wanted to resize the the Linux partition.

With a typical Redhat Fedora install, two partitions are  created  - one for
/boot and one for the OS and swap.  The second partition seems to be analogous
to a DOS extended partition with two logical partitions inside it (/ and swap).
 Since both my son and I had done just the default partitioning for Linux only,
there was no space for another partition to  be used for something both Linux
and Windows could access directly, such as a FAT partition.  However, it didn't
stick with me that a VM has no contact with the local hardware and that it
couldn't see, much less mount, a local partition.  The "disk" the VM sees is
just a large file in the host operating system, not the hardware.  So,
repartitioning was  no  needed since the VM would never be able to use it
anyways. However, I'd still like to figure out if it's possible to shrink that
"extended" partition and the logical drives inside it.  It appears to not be
possible at the moment  but tools will probably continue to evolve over time. 
One thing that may have been easier would be to shrink the ~100MB /boot
partition by 25-50MB (who needs THAT many kernels installed?) and stick the FAT
partition in there.  Still, without a dual boot machine, it makes no
difference/sense.

Needless to say, I won't be using default partitions any more.  I'll use
separate primary partitions unless I have a specific reason to do otherwise.

-- 
Jeff Guerdat

Vyarder zomanimor orzizazziz zanderar orziz?

--- JamNNTPd/Linux v1.0 - w/Mods by Hub2000
 * Origin: Hub2000 FTN News Server (1:229/2000)