Software Raid 5 (FC5)

[Gilboa Davara]

On Fri, 2006-03-31 at 10:49 -0800, Mark Yarbrough wrote:
> During install time I was made 10 raid partitions across 5 500GB SATA
> drives.  The final partition /dev/md8 wouldn’t partition format and
> anaconda would crash telling me that the partition couldn’t be
> formatted, and required a reboot.  After the 3rd attempt I figured
> that the partitions are all the same size so I will just format it
> when I am in the running operating system.
> 
>  
> 
> I took a look at my partitions using fdisk (take note that all 5 are
> the same save the drive number it self) <see paste at bottom>
> 
>  
> 
> The partitions are there. /dev/sdX11 is the partition that I am trying
> to use.  I tried to make the raid partitions to no avail.  I looked
> at /etc/mdadm.conf and saw that /dev/md8 is there.  From my limited
> understanding I am under the assumption that the raid is made and all
> I need to do is format it.  I try to format it and I get the error
> reporting the device size to be zero.  The partitions are clearly not
> zero.  I am now stuck.  What should I do next?

> 

... 
Forgive my stupid question... but why on earth would you want to setup
10 different RAID 5 array?
Why not just setup a single MD5 and use LVM to partition the array?
Having 10 different partition is -essentially- asking for trouble.

Gilboa