[Beowulf] Re: Beowulf Storage Node

Jörg Saßmannshausen jorg.sassmannshausen at strath.ac.uk
Wed Apr 15 06:41:45 PDT 2009


Dear all,

in fact, I got the same configuration on my old server. RAID1 for / and 
a RAID5 for /home.
I installed that some years ago, following these instructions:

http://www200.pair.com/mecham/raid/raid1-degraded.html

You even can, apparently, install grub on the 2 discs so you have some 
kind of failover when one disc dies (which it actually did some time 
ago). So the downtime of the system is minimal next to nothing, 
depending on whether you can hot-swap your discs or not (I cannot as 
they are IDE).

My 2 pence :-)

All the best

Jörg


> 
> Message: 7
> Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:18:26 +0100
> From: stephen mulcahy <smulcahy at atlanticlinux.ie>
> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Beowulf Storage Node
> To: Matt Lawrence <matt at technoronin.com>
> Cc: who's afraid of <beowulf at beowulf.org>
> Message-ID: <49E5D092.2050505 at atlanticlinux.ie>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> 
> Matt Lawrence wrote:
>> Sure it is.  The only issue you may run into is that the partition
>> containing /boot can't be on software RAID, grub & lilo don't know how
>> to deal with RAID partitions.  My solution has been to put /boot on
>> Compact Flash that is plugged into the motherboard IDE connector via a
>> $5 adapter card.
> 
> Hhhm,
> 
> I have a bunch of servers here with / as a RAID1 software raid volume
> and grub works perfectly (does seem to have problems with booting off of
> a RAID5 volume though). Furthermore, with a little manual intervention,
> you can install GRUB to the MBR of boot drives and everything works fine
> in the event of either disk failing (or at least being unplugged from
> the motherboard which was all I did in testing).
> 
> -stephen
> 
> --
> Stephen Mulcahy     Atlantic Linux         http://www.atlanticlinux.ie
> Registered in Ireland, no. 376591 (144 Ros Caoin, Roscam, Galway)
> 
> 
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> End of Beowulf Digest, Vol 62, Issue 62
> ***************************************

-- 
*************************************************************
Jörg Saßmannshausen
Research Fellow
University of Strathclyde
Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry
295 Cathedral St.
Glasgow
G1 1XL

email: jorg.sassmannshausen at strath.ac.uk
web: http://sassy.formativ.net

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