Linux with a software raid-1 for backup, easy?

[samcool55]

Hello everyone!

 

I have an old windows server sitting next to my desk, unused. And i want to bring it back to live.

I have a small pc with the os on a simple hdd (i have a 80 gb hdd for that) and i want to run a software raid-1 with it just to store the data (i am going to start with 2 160gb hdd's)

I had a hardware raid-5 and i just hate it, a software raid-1 looks to me easier to rebuild and i don't need a lot of space and the speed does not really matter)

Now the question is, is it easy to create something like this and is it easy to rebuild if one of the drive dies? I don't like the code/dos stuff, i want to be able to rebuild it with a simple program and some mouseclicks.

 

For the people that are asking why don't use windows, I want to protect my data from everything unwanted. The pc won't run 24/7, it will only run when i need to get data from it or to store data on it. The pc will run offline after the os is installed and updated and i want to avoid virusses killing the pc (the data comes from windows pc's only with an anti-virus of course, there are a lot of virusses only for windows so that's why i want a linux os).

I tried ubuntu for a while and i like it, other distro's are welcome!

[rashdanml]

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SoftwareRAID

 

Probably a good starting point. 

 

ZFS is another option http://zfsonlinux.org/

[samcool55]

Thanks for the quick response! 

I want to run the raid-1 and the os on different drives, as far i can see it is a guide to install ubuntu on a raid-configuration. 

Does ZFS supports a raid-1? there is a raid-5 and a raid-6 look-alike but i can't find a raid-1...

[rashdanml]

Thanks for the quick response! 

I want to run the raid-1 and the os on different drives, as far i can see it is a guide to install ubuntu on a raid-configuration. 

Does ZFS supports a raid-1? there is a raid-5 and a raid-6 look-alike but i can't find a raid-1...

ZFS does support RAID1, it just calls it slightly differently: Mirrored VDEV. 

RAID-Z1 and RAID-Z2 are RAID5 and RAID6 respectively. 

 

You should be able to find resources on creating a RAID1 post-install. http://feeding.cloud.geek.nz/posts/setting-up-raid-on-existing/ Something like that. 

[samcool55]

Thanks! It looks like it does exacly what i want. Any idea how easy it is to rebuild if a drive dies?

[rashdanml]

I haven't used ZFS, so I can't say. Last I recall, ZFS recommends 1GB of RAM per TB of data for optimal performance, so you should be good on that count (although that's probably for RAID5/6 setups, and not applicable for mirroring). For a 160GB drive, it probably won't take long. 

 

http://www.overclock.net/t/1285651/zfs-rebuild-times

 

According to that thread, rebuild times for a larger disk (1TB+) could take on the order of up to 7 hours. Since your drives are 160GB, it shouldn't take that long. Obviously multiple factors involved, like drive speed, etc. Again, the example in the topic is for a RAID6 setup, which requires a bit more calculations to rebuild disks in the array.