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From: Robert Slade <bsd@bathnetworks.com>
To: Joe Auty <joe@netmusician.org>
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Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 09:14:21 +0000
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Cc: "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject: Re: your advice on vinum, RAIDs
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On Thu, 2005-12-29 at 06:09, Joe Auty wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I've been considering buying another hard drive for my FreeBSD  
> machine, and building a RAID with my current hard drive so that both  
> drives are treated as one.
> 
> Do any of you have experience in this area? Is this advisable? I'm  
> assuming I'd be looking at creating a RAID-5? Can this be done  
> without reformatting my current drive? Does this setup work well? Do  
> you have any general advice for me? I need to know if there is risk  
> involved here.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks in advance!

Joe,

It depends on what you need to do. If you just want data integrity then
you need raid 1 - mirroring and GEOM is your friend. There is a good
section in the Handbook on setting a GEOM raid 1 without formatting the
original drive.


If you are also looking for more drive space, then raid 5 gives a
measure of both. 

In both cases, the warning of backing up the system first applies.

Rob