Creating Software RAID0 (Stripe) On Two Devices' Using Mdadm' Tool in Linux

Creating Software RAID0 (Stripe) on
‘Two Devices’ Using ‘mdadm’ Tool in

Linux
RAID is Redundant Array of Inexpensive disks, used for high availability and
reliability in large scale environments, where data need to be protected than
normal use. Raid is just a collection of disks in a pool to become a logical
volume and contains an array. A combine drivers makes an array or called as
set of (group).
RAID can be created, if there are minimum 2 number of disk connected to a
raid controller and make a logical volume or more drives can be added in an
array according to defined RAID Levels. Software Raid are available without
using Physical hardware those are called as software raid. Software Raid will
be named as Poor man raid.
Setup RAID0 in Linux
Main concept of using RAID is to save data from Single point of failure, means
if we using a single disk to store the data and if it’s failed, then there is no
chance of getting our data back, to stop the data loss we need a fault tolerance
method. So, that we can use some collection of disk to form a RAID set.
What is Stripe in RAID 0?

Stripe is striping data across multiple disk at the same time by dividing the
contents. Assume we have two disks and if we save content to logical volume it
will be saved under both two physical disks by dividing the content. For better
performance RAID 0 will be used, but we can’t get the data if one of the drive
fails. So, it isn’t a good practice to use RAID 0. The only solution is to install
operating system with RAID0 applied logical volumes to safe your important
files.
 RAID 0 has High Performance.
 Zero Capacity Loss in RAID 0. No Space will be wasted.
 Zero Fault Tolerance ( Can’t get back the data if any one of disk fails).
 Write and Reading will be Excellent.
Requirements
Minimum number of disks are allowed to create RAID 0 is 2, but you can add
more disk but the order should be twice as 2, 4, 6, 8. If you have a Physical
RAID card with enough ports, you can add more disks.
Here we are not using a Hardware raid, this setup depends only on Software
RAID. If we have a physical hardware raid card we can access it from it’s
utility UI. Some motherboard by default in-build with RAID feature,
there UI can be accessed using Ctrl+I keys.
If you’re new to RAID setups, please read our earlier article, where we’ve
covered some basic introduction of about RAID.
 Introduction to RAID and RAID Concepts

My Server Setup
Operating System : CentOS 6.5 Final
IP Address : 192.168.0.225
Two Disks : 20 GB each

This article is Part 2 of a 9-tutorial RAID series, here in this part, we are going
to see how we can create and setup Software RAID0 or striping in Linux
systems or servers using two 20GB disks named sdb and sdc.
Step 1: Updating System and Installing mdadm
for Managing RAID
1. Before setting up RAID0 in Linux, let’s do a system update and then install
‘mdadm‘ package. The mdadm is a small program, which will allow us to
configure and manage RAID devices in Linux.
# yum clean all && yum update
# yum install mdadm -y
Install mdadm Tool
Step 2: Verify Attached Two 20GB Drives

2. Before creating RAID 0, make sure to verify that the attached two hard
drives are detected or not, using the following command.
# ls -l /dev | grep sd
Check Hard Drives
3. Once the new hard drives detected, it’s time to check whether the attached
drives are already using any existing raid with the help of following ‘mdadm’
command.
# mdadm --examine /dev/sd[b-c]
Check RAID Devices
In the above output, we come to know that none of the RAID have been
applied to these two sdb and sdc drives.
Step 3: Creating Partitions for RAID
4. Now create sdb and sdc partitions for raid, with the help of following fdisk
command. Here, I will show how to create partition on sdb drive.
# fdisk /dev/sdb
Follow below instructions for creating partitions.
 Press ‘n‘ for creating new partition.

 Then choose ‘P‘ for Primary partition.
 Next select the partition number as 1.
 Give the default value by just pressing two times Enter key.
 Next press ‘P‘ to print the defined partition.
Create Partitions
Follow below instructions for creating Linux raid auto on partitions.
 Press ‘L‘ to list all available types.

 Type ‘t‘to choose the partitions.
 Choose ‘fd‘ for Linux raid auto and press Enter to apply.
 Then again use ‘P‘ to print the changes what we have made.
 Use ‘w‘ to write the changes.
Create RAID Partitions in Linux
Note: Please follow same above instructions to create partition on sdc drive
now.
5. After creating partitions, verify both the drivers are correctly defined for
RAID using following command.
# mdadm --examine /dev/sd[b-c]
# mdadm --examine /dev/sd[b-c]1

Verify RAID Partitions
Step 4: Creating RAID md Devices

6. Now create md device (i.e. /dev/md0) and apply raid level using below
command.
# mdadm -C /dev/md0 -l raid0 -n 2 /dev/sd[b-c]1
# mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=stripe --raid-devices=2 /dev/sd[b-c]1
 -C – create
 -l – level
 -n – No of raid-devices
7. Once md device has been created, now verify the status of RAID
Level, Devices and Array used, with the help of following series of commands
as shown.
# cat /proc/mdstat
Verify RAID Level
# mdadm -E /dev/sd[b-c]1
Verify RAID Device

# mdadm --detail /dev/md0
Verify RAID Array
Step 5: Assiging RAID Devices to Filesystem

8. Create a ext4 filesystem for a RAID device /dev/md0 and mount it
under /dev/raid0.
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/md0
Create ext4 Filesystem
9. Once ext4 filesystem has been created for Raid device, now create a mount
point directory (i.e. /mnt/raid0) and mount the device /dev/md0 under it.
# mkdir /mnt/raid0
# mount /dev/md0 /mnt/raid0/
10. Next, verify that the device /dev/md0 is mounted

under /mnt/raid0 directory using df command.
# df -h
11. Next, create a file called ‘tecmint.txt‘ under the mount point /mnt/raid0,
add some content to the created file and view the content of a file and
directory.
# touch /mnt/raid0/tecmint.txt
# echo "Hi everyone how you doing ?" > /mnt/raid0/tecmint.txt
# cat /mnt/raid0/tecmint.txt
# ls -l /mnt/raid0/
Verify Mount Device
12. Once you’ve verified mount points, it’s time to create an fstab entry
in /etc/fstab file.
# vim /etc/fstab
Add the following entry as described. May vary according to your mount
location and filesystem you using.
/dev/md0 /mnt/raid0 ext4 defaults 0
0
Add Device to Fstab
13. Run mount ‘-a‘ to check if there is any error in fstab entry.
# mount -av
Check Errors in Fstab
Step 6: Saving RAID Configurations

14. Finally, save the raid configuration to one of the file to keep the
configurations for future use. Again we use ‘mdadm’ command with ‘-s‘ (scan)
and ‘-v‘ (verbose) options as shown.
# mdadm -E -s -v >> /etc/mdadm.conf
# mdadm --detail --scan --verbose >> /etc/mdadm.conf
# cat /etc/mdadm.conf
Save RAID Configurations
That’s it, we have seen here, how to configure RAID0 striping with raid levels
by using two hard disks.

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Creating Software RAID0 (Stripe) on

‘Two Devices’ Using ‘mdadm’ Tool in

Setup RAID0 in Linux

What is Stripe in RAID 0?

 Introduction to RAID and RAID Concepts

Operating System : CentOS 6.5 Final

Two Disks : 20 GB each

# yum clean all && yum update

# yum install mdadm -y

Install mdadm Tool

Step 2: Verify Attached Two 20GB Drives

# mdadm --examine /dev/sd[b-c]

Check RAID Devices

Follow below instructions for creating partitions.

 Press ‘n‘ for creating new partition.

Follow below instructions for creating Linux raid auto on partitions.

 Press ‘L‘ to list all available types.

# mdadm --examine /dev/sd[b-c]

# mdadm --examine /dev/sd[b-c]1

Step 4: Creating RAID md Devices

# mdadm -C /dev/md0 -l raid0 -n 2 /dev/sd[b-c]1

# mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=stripe --raid-devices=2 /dev/sd[b-c]1

Verify RAID Device

Verify RAID Array

Step 5: Assiging RAID Devices to Filesystem

# mount /dev/md0 /mnt/raid0/

10. Next, verify that the device /dev/md0 is mounted

# echo "Hi everyone how you doing ?" > /mnt/raid0/tecmint.txt

Verify Mount Device

Add Device to Fstab

Check Errors in Fstab

Step 6: Saving RAID Configurations

# mdadm -E -s -v >> /etc/mdadm.conf

# mdadm --detail --scan --verbose >> /etc/mdadm.conf

Save RAID Configurations

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