I’ve been browsing. And it’s been interesting. It’s the classic learning curve issue. Since I thought of setting up “redundant” hard drives, I was looking at RAID1. Most documentation spoke of RAID and LVM. And somehow I got the impression that I could create a RAID using LVM, esp. since LVM has a checkbox that says mirror. Eventually, I figured out that what I was trying to achieve could be done in two ways: LVM mirroring or a software RAID. Yes, they’re two different things.
Software RAID1 requires 2 partitions of equal size. It’ll make sure that whatever’s written is written to both and when reading will check both. LVM Mirroring on the other hand requires 3 partitions: two partitions of equal size and a log partitions. It acts like the software raid to mirror the data, and it also writes a log. I’m still researching it, but I’m leaning towards the software RAID1 idea. 3 partitions gives me a headache. Doesn’t this mean a single point of failure? If the log partition blows, you’re done for. And it removes that beautiful symmetry that I was dreaming of. Pete, my friend had strongly recommended a Software RAID. At that time I thought he was recommending it as opposed to hardware RAID. I guess I know better now.
Now, I’m going to research how to create the software RAID!
Staying Sane ... or tryin' 