Software RAID (mdadm) and you!

[cw823]

Basically which is the best software raid solution to use. mdadm seems promising but I'm not sold.

For what? mdadm with ZFS is a great solution, but there are several other products that also use ZFS file system. thidy has a plethora of data available but apparently he has a "real life" and a "job" which prohibits him from spending all his free time testing various NAS operating systems.

 

[Automata]

It comes down to what you are using the server for, as cw823 said.

 

[cullam3n]

I use mdadm for my NAS for RAID 5, if you have any questions I can try to help.

 

[cullam3n]

mdadm=/sbin/mdadm
raid=$($mdadm -D /dev/md0 | grep -i 'State :' | awk -F 'State : ' ' {print $2}')
clean=$(echo "clean")
if [ "$raid" != "$clean" ]
then
   raidf=$(echo "DEGRADED" && cat "/proc/mdstat" && mdadm -D "/dev/md0")
else
   raidf=$(echo "normal")
fi

By the way, this is the script I used to monitor the RAID. Runs every 12 hours on my server and is part of my semi-daily email. It looks for the "clean" in the --detail of the mdadm command.

 

[Zerix01]

mdadm is a great solution and is the official Linux software RAID solution. This is not just a side project, it is part of the kernel. I have been running RAID 5 using mdadm on the same three 500GB Hitachi's since 2007. I have never randomly dropped a drive or had any functional issues with it. I also have been able to port the array with mostly no effort between distro's like Kubutntu to Fedora and I have even been able to start it up from a Live CD when my computer has been in a bad state but I still needed access to my data. Not to mention I have been through four different motherboards and since it does not tie you to the on board chipset it was really nothing at all changing hardware and carrying over the array.