[ubuntu] [SOLVED] Building Ubuntu NAS, couple of questions

[BassKozz]

I have an old P4 3.0GHz laying around that I would like to turn into a NAS using Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop. It has 4GB of RAM in it (more then enough), and I plan on running Samba Shares, FTP, and possibly Apache on it (for internal web-hosting).

I've got two questions:

1. I plan on running a software RAID 5 (mdadm) on this machine, it has 2 ide ports available and 2 SATA ports. I plan on running the OS on a single IDE drive (non-raid), and the RAID 5 will consist of 1x IDE drive and 2x SATA drives (I have 3x 300GB drives laying around, so that should make a 600GB RAID 5 with redundancy), is it ok to mix IDE and SATA drives with software RAID (mdadm)?
   
   Also where is a good place to start when looking for info on how to setup a software raid using mdadm?
   
   
2. What sort of power-saving settings can I setup for my NAS so that it's not sucking down power 24/7?
   This box will be headless, so I already got that going for me (no monitor). But I was wondering if there is a way to setup the NAS so that is spins-down or puts the computer sleep mode when it's not being accessed. I would hate to have the drives spinning 24/7 if they don't have to.

TiA,
-BassKozz

[cozmicharlie]

Software raid is very easy to set up on Ubuntu. A few sources that might help you

This is a simple How To with screenshots.
http://bfish.xaedalus.net/?p=188

The software raid How To is getting a but old but the info is still good.
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO.html

Numerous articles on "How To Forge" that might help.
http://www.howtoforge.com/trip_search

hope this helps

[BassKozz]

Thanks for the resources cozmicharlie,

Anyone know if there is a problem with me mixing SATA & IDE in a Software RAID Array?
Also any info on Power-Saving settings I might beable to use w/ Software RAID that will spin down disks when not in use?

[anewguy]

I hope this will answer your questions about mixed adapter RAID arrays:

http://www.howinthetech.com/quick-an...oftware-raid5/

Dave

[BassKozz]

Thanks for all the help everryone, I am marking this thread [SOLVED] and I've moved the powersaving question here; http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1012959