Chapter 12. Disk Partitioning

Fedora creates and uses several partitions on the available hard drives. You may customize both the partitions, and how the drives on your system are managed. Section 12.2, “General Information on Partitions” explains drive partitions in more detail.

12.1. RAID and Other Disk Devices

12.1.1. Hardware RAID

RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, allows a group, or array, of drives to act as a single device. Configure any RAID functions provided by the mainboard of your computer, or attached controller cards, before you begin the installation process. Each active RAID array appears as one drive within Fedora.

On systems with more than one hard drive you may configure Fedora to operate several of the drives as a Linux RAID array without requiring any additional hardware.

12.1.2. Software RAID

You can use the Fedora installation program to create Linux software RAID arrays, where RAID functions are controlled by the operating system rather than dedicated hardware. These functions are explained in detail in Section 12.7, “Disk Druid”.

12.1.3. FireWire and USB Disks

Some FireWire and USB hard disks may not be recognized by the Fedora installation system. If configuration of these disks at installation time is not vital, disconnect them to avoid any confusion.

[Tip] Post-installation Usage

You can connect and configure external FireWire and USB hard disks after installation. Most such devices are recognized by the kernel and available for use at that time.