Re: SUSE 9.2: SoftRAID infinte sync!

From: Michael Buchenrieder (mibu_at_scrum.muc.de)
Date: 11/20/04 

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 10:21:01 GMT

"Nico Kadel-Garcia" <nkadel@comcast.net> writes:

>"Harald Schneider" <h_schneider@marketmix.com> wrote in message
>news:cnk6ap$lo$00$1@news.t-online.com...
>> Hi,
>>
>> I installed a software RAID (Level1) with 2 IDE drives and ReiseFS.
>>
>> /dev/md0 is /boot
>> /dev/md1 is swap
>> /dev/md2 is /
>>

[...]

>1: Don't use software RAID if you value your support time. A good hardware
>RAID, especially a 3Ware card, is well worth the very modest card.

True enough, but then, a _real_ RAID-card (e.g., the 3Ware model you mentioned)
costs real money, which isn't always an option.

>2: You neglect to tell us the model or quality of the drives. Could drive 2
>be failing?

Possible.

>3: As a precaution, I would open the box and reseat all the cables, just in
>case. I've had flakey cable connections cause that kind of whackiness,
>although not that specific error state.

That wouldn't explain why the synch works on md0 and md1.

Some suggestions:

a) Use a smarter partitioning scheme. The present scheme is less but helpful;
   you're actually wasting CPU time and resources on mirroring /boot and your
   swapspace instead of dividing up the rest of your system (containing all
   relevant and possibly important data). Personally, I'd strongly suggest
   to at least putting /home, /usr and (in the case of SuSE especially) /opt
   on separate partitions for to avoid losing all data in case _one_ md device
   gets corrupted. And yes, that may happen with RAID1 as well. It just makes
   it less likely.

b) Never try to mirror / itself. It is generally easier to just use rsync
   for getting a fully up-to-date copy of the data on /, and it avoids
   problems like the one you are facing right now. After having setup
   a system, the data on / hardly ever gets changed (the directories below /
   will of course have changes, but / itself hardly ever needs to be
   edited).

c) Try to boot from the SuSE CD, resynch the md2 manually with the rescue
   system, then reboot into your installed system.

Michael 

-- 
Michael Buchenrieder * mibu@scrum.greenie.muc.de * http://www.muc.de/~mibu
          Lumber Cartel Unit #456 (TINLC) & Official Netscum
    Note: If you want me to send you email, don't munge your address.

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