wd5000aaks - linux + raid

1.  IS this drive compatible with  Linux ?

2.  I have read a number of issues with RAID-ing these drives – and I am under the impression that they are mostly related to hardware based RAID.  Is that correct? I am thinking of using software based RAID .  Any gotchas that I should worry about?

3.  I have another drive that is also 500GB but not WD.  WOuld software RAID based on LINUX work on mismatched drive?

Thanks in advance!

I doubt that any raid will work with such mismatched drives.  However, I wouldn’t try to raid these drives.  They are not raid drives and will drop out of the array sooner or later.  As for compatibility with linux, we can’t guarantee how any of our drives will interact or not interact with operating systems we haven’t tested them on.  Nevertheless, a drive is a drive and there shouldn’t be any issue with using them on a linux system.

I have been using a combination of Black and Green WD drives in various software RAID 1, 5, and 10 configurations during the last nine months on Ubuntu Linux 9.10 with only one minor problem.  On most system reboots, the RAID 5 spare drives would invariably drop out of the array.  After adding them back using the Linux mdadm command, the spare drive would remain until the system rebooted.

Got rid of the RAID 5 arrays about a month ago and moved all data to RAID 10 arrays.  So far, so good.