Software RAID guidance

[Kevin Kinsey]

Robert Fitzpatrick wrote:
> I have an old NT4 PIII here that has a pair Adaptec Array1000 Family
> controllers with 2 pairs of identical drives on one of them (2 IBM 9GB
> and 2 Seagate 35GB). From what I googled, *nix does not support the
> controller, so I have removed the RAID arrays and loaded FreeBSD 6.0
> onto the two IBM drives. Now, I wanted to mirror the other two for data
> and looking for guidance as to whether it is first of all suited for
> software RAID and if so, CCD or vinum. I am contemplating vinum because
> the handbook mentions CCD is when cost is the important factor and for
> me, is reliability. What would someone suggest? If vinum, one thing I
> don't quite understand is do I create the partitions to be used in the
> device? There doesn't seem to be a man for gvinum and the link to it in
> the handbook section 19.6.1 is broken.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 

Unlike what some seem to be claiming, I *have* been able
to use gvinum on 6.X --- the documentation for vinum was
helpful, you just put a "g" in front of the commands; quid
pro quo, a few things in "vinum" aren't carried over into
"gvinum", but it's basically the same stuff (thanks Lukas,
thanks Grog, etc.).

I did have some system instability during my trial, though;
I've put it down to a bad IDE HDD (because it gave issues
when not part of a gvinum plex as well), but I didn't give
it a serious amount of testing.

As for the handbook, you seem to be correct.  You might file
a "doc" PR --- they'd probably appreciate having the opportunity
to fix this.  However, I do find gvinum(8) on my box....

Kevin Kinsey