This is a quick guide to setting up a Linux software RAID mirror (aka RAID 1).
There are a couple of toolsets for managing raid on Linux, raidtools and mdadm. This guide will use mdadm because imho it has better commands and features for monitoring.
Right, first you’ll need a couple of disk partitions of about the same size. These should be on separate disks or you’ll be defeating the point of raid mirroring
Raid disks appear under /dev as md0, md1 etc.
A quick way to check the status of your raid devices is to type cat /proc/mdstat
On my system this shows:
md1 : active raid1 sda2[0] sdb2[1]
96320 blocks [2/2] [UU]
md0 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1]
29294400 blocks [2/2] [UU]
Because on my system md0 and md1 are already in use, I will create this new raid as md2.
So lets assume that you have 2 partitions; /dev/sda3 and /dev/sdb3. The following command will create a raid device as /dev/md2.
mdadm --create --verbose /dev/md2 --level=mirror --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda3 /dev/sdb3
If all went well you can confirm the size/details of your new raid device:
mdadm --detail /dev/md2
/dev/md2:
Version : 00.90
Creation Time : Wed Apr 22 21:34:44 2009
Raid Level : raid1
Array Size : 458993024 (437.73 GiB 470.01 GB)
Used Dev Size : 458993024 (437.73 GiB 470.01 GB)
Raid Devices : 2
Total Devices : 2
Preferred Minor : 2
Persistence : Superblock is persistent
Update Time : Wed Apr 22 21:34:44 2009
State : clean
Active Devices : 2
Working Devices : 2
Failed Devices : 0
Spare Devices : 0
UUID : e893056a:5de3d066:4bca1532:59cc93a2 (local to host xenmaster)
Events : 0.1
Number Major Minor RaidDevice State
0 8 3 0 active sync /dev/sda3
1 8 19 1 active sync /dev/sdb3
And you cat check that it is running:
cat /proc/mdstat
md2 : active (auto-read-only) raid1 sdb3[1] sda3[0]
458993024 blocks [2/2] [UU]
resync=PENDING
md1 : active raid1 sda2[0] sdb2[1]
96320 blocks [2/2] [UU]
md0 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1]
29294400 blocks [2/2] [UU]
In my case you can see that the raid pair is not synced yet. After about 10 minutes or so re-issuing the command shows that the raid pair are now syncing (alternatively you can try running the raid to kick start the sync by issuing mdadm --run /dev/md2):
cat /proc/mdstat
md2 : active raid1 sdb3[1] sda3[0]
458993024 blocks [2/2] [UU]
[=>……………….] resync = 7.6% (35247744/458993024) finish=73.2min speed=96456K/sec
and mdadm -detail /dev/md2
/dev/md2:
Version : 00.90
Creation Time : Wed Apr 22 21:34:44 2009
Raid Level : raid1
Array Size : 458993024 (437.73 GiB 470.01 GB)
Used Dev Size : 458993024 (437.73 GiB 470.01 GB)
Raid Devices : 2
Total Devices : 2
Preferred Minor : 2
Persistence : Superblock is persistent
Update Time : Wed Apr 22 22:10:29 2009
State : active, resyncing
Active Devices : 2
Working Devices : 2
Failed Devices : 0
Spare Devices : 0
Rebuild Status : 9% complete
UUID : e893056a:5de3d066:4bca1532:59cc93a2 (local to host xenmaster)
Events : 0.3
Number Major Minor RaidDevice State
0 8 3 0 active sync /dev/sda3
1 8 19 1 active sync /dev/sdb3
At this point is should be possible to mount and use the raid device and even format it while it is being rebuilt. However, I want to put LVM on it so I’ll wait until the sync is complete…
Please note that the new raid device will most likely sow in /proc/mdstat as active (auto-read-only) until you either mount it or create an LVM volume on it (i.e. use it).
And that’s it really. You use /dev/md2 as you would any disk partition such as /dev/sda1 to format, mount or use as a PV for LVM.