When to create a software RAID array in Ubuntu

Also, if you're going to create it before OS install, you'll need the Alternate install CD/DVD. You'll then be able to setup the drives/partitions. The standard install doesn't give the option from what I recall.

P.S.  after you power it off, but before you plug in the disk, then reboot. This insures system boots ok when it is degraded.    Power off, and then plug in the primary boot disk.   Then power on, then it *should* actually boot from the secondary disk, and then you can practice repairing the degraded RAID1.  Might as well have a dry run through repair as well, so you know how to do it.   Some day you'll be thankful you did :)

Ok - dry run is a great idea.  Create the array first - got it.  I just downloaded the Alternate ISO as well.

My mobo doesn't support RAID (it's a Dell Poweredge T110) and I'm using three 500GB drives (I should've specified that initially - sorry).  I'm assuming RAID 5 will be the best way to go as 1TB is enough space for me.  

Given that, are their any differences in the dry run steps or any other recommendations you have?

Thanks for everything.  It's greatly appreciated.  

That should work great for you. My latest file server setup was 7 x 500GB with RAID 6. Turned an OLD LanParty desktop system into a home media server / file server.

You really want to then partition the disks so that you split the O/S into a grub partition and make it RAID1, (but a 3-way RAID1), then put the rest on a 3-disk RAID5.  Linux will let you do that, and in fact, if your data can be organized so that the O/S can be separated from whatever you need for your applications, then personally I would make it into 3 partitions, a 3-way RAID1 for both grub & your operating system, swap, and everything else, then a RAID5 for /r5    and then your databases or whatever go there and it is raid5.


RAID5 is horrible for writes as you know, but LINUX software RAID does things like balancing reads across each disk in a RAID1, so you will get great performance.  In fact, put any write intensive and most important stuff in the RAID1 partition, so you get 3 copies for added protection!

Doing mixed RAID levels works quite well, and is advanced, and many don't even know it is possible, but plenty of examples online on how to create rather sophisticated configurations if you just google configure md raid linux

I found out that I DO have an S100 PERC controller built into the MOBO.  I spoke with a Dell rep that first told me no but the second guy pointed out that there is one.  

I'll post a new question as you guys have done more than enough on answering this one.

I have posted a new question about how to recover here in case anyone wants to give it a shot.