soft/fake raid in linux

original
I don't have much experience with Linux, but this is a good oportunity to learn

I'm mounting a simple database server and i would like to know if ubuntu server 9.10 (what do you guys recommend for a [begginer] server distribution ?) would work with a hardware raid-1 with this motherboard (there is no linux raid driver listed on vendors download page)

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/product/Motherboards/detail_spec.aspx?ID=en-us0000346

edit

After some tips i discovered that i call raid is actually a fakeraid, also found some articles about running linux on fakeraid using dmraid, and soft raid was suggested and since the performance/capabilities are almost the same, i need to help in another question

Whitch one is easier to setup and will automatically recover and/or boot with 1 disk on some failure

keep in mind that i'm no expert, so if something is very hard to configure i prefer to stand way, at least for now.

Thanks in advance

Arthur

If you mean the RAID controller built into the motherboard, I'd AVOID IT. It's not true hardware RAID.

Motherboard RAID is regarded as the worst of RAIDs, as it is motherboard specific, there are several online instances of the motherboard just losing the RAID configuration and hosing volumes, and in the end, if you're trying to get RAID on the less expensive but capable side, use software RAID built into Linux.

True hardware RAID is cached and will cost you in the wallet, but it costs more for a reason. Motherboard RAID often is just software RAID in firmware, only it can make the volume specific to that machine. Drive die or hardware issue? You can't necessarily recover the data by moving it to another system, since the motherboard may have done something odd to the formatting of the disk volume.

If you're looking for hardware RAID with Linux, I've had good luck with 3Ware controllers, and if you don't want to spend the cash, use software RAID. Comes free with Linux.

I have always stayed away from onboard desktop board controllers (integrated server ones are a different ballpark), horror stories of incremental data corruption, shoddy drivers etc have had an effect. I would go for either an Adaptec (or similar) card that starts at around £100 or go for software RAID.

If this is a small deployment, I would choose software RAID, it is pretty easy to manage and you have the flexibility of being able to mount half of a RAID mirror on virtually any Linux machine. Plus it is free, out of the box and relatively well battle tested. The main selling point for me is being able to manage it completely from inside the OS, no reboot required.

In terms of OS, Ubuntu Server is pretty good and lightweight, however, I would recommend perhaps going for an LTS version. Alternatively, as suggested CentOS is a great server OS, it will have slightly older package sets but you do get a thoroughly tested product as a result.

You may want to familiarize yourself with the UbuntuHCL (Hardware Compatibility List). Specifically, the motherboard list and the storage controller list.

Normally you wouldn't need any drivers as hardware RAID controller would present the RAID device as a physical device to your operating system. So you'd see /dev/sda but in fact it is made of two or more disks.

Mirroring parameters etc is all controlled from the RAID controller firmware, which you can access during the server POST boot (this is when you hit keys to get into BIOS, etc). Check with MB manual how to configure RAID device. Alternatively just pay attention to boot messages printed on the screen.

With regards to your question for server OS, I'd recommend looking at CentOS, which is basically a recompiled RedHat Enterprise Linux. This is what "big guys" are using... :)