[WBEL-users] Software raid and User Mode Linux CD burning on WBEL

[Jan-Albert van Ree]

On Friday 16 July 2004 15:37, Alex Georgiev wrote:

> I want to move the company file server from gentoo to WBEL or
> other RHEL recompiled distro.
>
> The mother board is an old intel 820 desktop board with 512MB ram,
> Pentium III 500MHz. This server provides the following services for 15
> windows/linux clients:
>
> 	oracle, samba, nfs, cvs, mail (smtp, pop3), dhcp, dns, http
>
> the average load is very, very low.
> Except upgrading to WBEL I want to do 2 additional things:
>
> 1. Setup a network CD burning software under UML
> We are using a separate machine for cd burning with webCDcreator,
> I would like to move the cd burning to the file server, but
> as some times cd burning makes the kernel panic, I think that I should
> setup User Mode Linux on the file server and provide this service under
> UML, expecting that a kernel panic in the UML, will not affect the
> underlying WBEL file server. I intent to put a CD writer device and a
> CDROM device on separate channels of the onboard IDE controller.
>
>
> 2. Setup a software Raid 0 (mirror) with two 200GB disks using an
> additional PCI IDE controller, The one I can found here is:
>
> 	EIO AP-1680 Ultra ATA/133 IDE RAID Controller Card
>
> 	http://www.ivmm.com/eio/products_ap1680.html with chip set
> http://siimage.cubik.com/products/sii0680.asp
>
> This one is a cheap RAID controller, but I intend to use it as a pure
> IDE controller, connect the two disks on separate channels,
> and set up a software mirror, on wich to install WBEL, user data and
> Oracle.
>
> I shall buy a new 450 Watt power unit for the box.
>
> I have not used either EIO AP-1680 controller, UML or software raid so
> far, and I will highly appreciate any comments and suggestions.

Software RAID0 means higher load, and it's a risk to your data... I'd 
seriously consider looking for better alternatives (since you mention load 
is low, I can't imagine you need the performance of RAID0?) Better two 
partitions with both 200GB than one large 400GB with a much higher chance 
of failure....

I've been using software RAID1 on a Dell Poweredge 600S server for over a 
year now without any issues (still need to move it from RH7.3 to WBEL... 
some time in future) but ofcourse that's a somewhat different story (all 
SCSI setup, low loads, low disk I/O except for weekly backups)

As for webCDcreator, I haven't seen any kernel panics or other issues with 
it yet, I'd say set up a testbox with WBEL first to see how it behaves, I 
installed it two months ago and it's seen extensive use without any issues 
so far.
-- 
Jan-Albert van Ree        | http://www.vanree.net/brickpiles/
VanReeDotNet IT Solutions | http://www.vanree.net
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