Question: Sun Drive Arrays with RAID 1+0

[Bushman, Gonzo]

Hello all you gurus out there!

I have a good question that I need advise on. I am running 2.4 on two
machines, 690MP and 2000E. I have a Sun Disk Array 100 (30GB) on each
system. I have had these set up using Volume Manager 2.1 with RAID 5
(effectively giving me about 17-18 GB storage capacity). I have had
several problems with this arrangement. I have all the recommended
patches loaded and the firmware upgraded (one is at firmware 2.1 the
other is 2.4 I think). Anyway, RAID 5 does not work under this
configuration. This has been confirmed by several sources, including you
folks and Sun (unless somebody out there knows of a work around or
something that I haven't tried yet!). I have lost a couple of drives and
have had to completely rebuild the affected partition each time. This is
a real problem, one of my sites has lost 8-10 drives in the last year!
Because of this, I am considering going to RAID 0+1. It will only cost
me a couple more GB of storage space, which isn't a problem, but I am
concerned whether this RAID level will work either. I need the
reliability that RAID 5 would have given me but am wondering if I should
I just go ahead and go all the way down to RAID 0 and then completely
rely on backups since there won't be any way to rebuild data if I lose a
drive at RAID 0.

I would appreciate any and all recommendations/comments on this subject.
I will post a good summary with the answers.

Thanks for your expertise,

Gonzo Bushman, TSgt, USAF
Lead, Systems Administration Team
WWOLS-R Project
Tinker AFB, OK USA 73145
Phone: 405-734-3283 Ext. 22
E-Mail: bus...@comswsys.tinkernet.af.mil