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I've just obtained my first real life server. A dell PowerEdge 2970 with 8 HDDs.

I did some rudimentary studying on the Internet about RAID configurations and hopped right in.

Having read that it was normal to configure the first two drives as RAID 1 I did just that. Thinking it would be a good place to setup whatever core administrative infrastructure I might feel I need or want to learn about.

I then configured 5 as RAID5 and the last one as a replacement drive.

I setup a turnkey Linux domain controller/active directory on the RAIDd1 array and turnkey lxc on the RAID5.

Now that I'm booted to the RAID5 array I'm a little lost in the woods. My intention had been to run multiple webservices on my RAID5 and join them together common domain with other computers and a printer on my network.

However this plan under this configuration relies on one thing: the ability to run these separate RAID arrays and operating systems simultaneously.

Is this possible?

If its possible, is it possible in a practical way or should I redo my RAID configuration entirely in order to achieve my goals?

stray
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1 Answers1

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You can run multiple RAIDs on the same machine simultaneously under the same operating system. They will appear as separate disks in the OS.

You cannot run two baremetal systems simultaneously on the same machine. If you want to run several systems on the same machine you need to employ virtualization.

Running separate RAIDs is not a goal but a means to an end. Define your goal in terms of what services your machine should provide. Then design an architecture that can provide those services. As a last step you decide what kind of machine you need and what kind of disk space it'll need. If your current machine and RAID setup provides that, fine. Otherwise you'll have to adapt it, for example by configuring different RAIDs or even by adding or replacing disks.

Tilman Schmidt
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