From owner-freebsd-questions Sat May 29 20:52:20 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from dsinw.com (dsinw.com [207.149.40.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A416115655 for ; Sat, 29 May 1999 20:52:04 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from hamellr@dsinw.com) Received: (from hamellr@localhost) by dsinw.com (8.8.8/8.7.3) id UAA17811; Sat, 29 May 1999 20:49:54 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 20:49:54 -0700 (PDT) From: rick hamell To: gummibear@we.mediaone.net Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: RAID: How does it work? (clueless about RAID) In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.19990529201736.007a4bb0@we.mediaone.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > What I've understood until now, RAID 5 is a multiple disk array which acts > like one big disk, and the data is scattered throughout the disks. Am I > right, or completely wrong? There are different types of RAID. RAID 0 through RAID 5. I wish I could find my referances on this but what I remeber is that each level could be a combination of software or hardware, with RAID 5 being the most fault-tolerant (and expensive,) while RAID 0 is the least. > Okay, say if I was going to build a mega WebServer using FreeBSD and I > wanted to utilize RAID 5 for data protection and stuff. I'm sure first I'd > need a SCSI adapter. Does it have to be a special one? When I install > FreeBSD how does it know that I'm using RAID 5? Is that something that I > set in the SCSI BIOS or something. It depends on what level of protection you want and can afford. Around my office we simply do dual SCSI controllers with mirrored drives in hot swappable drive bays. We don't need the protection a full RAID 5 system. I personally think this is the kind of solution you should look at for a simple web server. > I really need a RAID tutorial, because I'm making things move and groove at > my workplace. We'll be needing a WebServer soon, and I want to make sure > it's stable and that my data is safe. > > Also, any suggestions on good tape backup drives? Make a back-up server. I've never been a fan of tape backups, way to many things can go wrong for reliable protection. You could have two load sharing servers, if one goes down the other one takes everything over. That way you wouldn't be down at all, simply running slower. :) Rick To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message