Ubuntu
dmraid package

dmraid - proper way of simulating failure of RAID

Asked by Sandra Escandor

I read somewhere that simulating a RAID disk failure by pulling out the disk while the system is on is a bad idea (in software RAID), but is ok in hardware RAID, since SATA disks are rarely hot-swap (according to http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/networking/testing-your-software-raid-be-prepared/387).

I haven't seen a well-defined way to simulate a RAID failure in dmraid (unlike in mdadm, where there is a specific command to do so). What's the best way to simulate a RAID failure if I were using dmraid?

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Phillip Susi
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Phillip Susi (psusi) said : 		#1

dmraid does not really handle failures correctly and should only be used for dual boot compatibility with Windows. If you want fault tolerance, you should use mdadm.

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Sandra Escandor (sescandor) said : 		#2

Does this mean that dmraid is still considered "experimental", and isn't really used in servers as much as mdadm?

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Best Phillip Susi (psusi) said : 		#3

On 5/3/2011 11:50 AM, Sandra Escandor wrote:
> Does this mean that dmraid is still considered "experimental", and isn't
> really used in servers as much as mdadm?

Yes.

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Sandra Escandor (sescandor) said : 		#4

Thanks Phillip Susi, that solved my question.