Byte.com has published a well written and highly informative article, by Moshe Bar, about the technologies and implementation methods for setting up and using Redundant Array of Inexpensive/Independent Disks (RAID) under Linux. The article focuses on how to implement a RAID system using SCSI hard disks.

“The delivered performance of many applications is governed by the speed at which data can be retrieved from storage. This is particularly true of DBMS systems. Disks are the slowest component of a system, and should receive the most careful attention during configuration. However, because disk subsystems are also the most complex parts of a system, a wide variety of misconceptions and false notions promote sub-optimal configuration of disk subsystems.”

“. . . We are only going to look at SCSI disks here, because IDE disks are really not worth putting in a self-respecting Linux server. The reason is that IDE controllers don't disconnect from the bus while waiting for completion from disk I/O. In a multi-user, multitasking environment like Linux, this is clearly detrimental to performance, to put it mildly. “

Topics included in the article are:

• Setting It Up
  
• RAID 5 With A Hot Spare
  
• Recovery Measures
  
• Some Sample Recovery Cases
  
• Disk I/O Primer

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.