Advice or best practice LVM and RAID

[TechC]

Hello List,
I have a RHEL host that I will be connecting to a 5 RAID array. The array is capable of RAID 1,5,10,50. There are 5 300GB SAS disks.
The host will be running multiple databases 8 or 9 total that do not handle RAID5 so RAID5 is not an option.

What would be the best option for such a situation. As I said I have 5 300GB disks to work with. The way I see it these are my options.
1) Create two 300GB mirrors from 4 disks and use the fifth for a hot spare.
2) Create a 600GB RAID10 volume and use the 5th disk as the hot spare.
I myself do not see a better option than the RAID10 but I would like to hear some feedback.

Also in the case I do use a RAID10, in terms of
performance...Is it suggested to create multiple logical volumes on the RAID10 volume and put each database on its own logical volume? Or is it better to create a single logical volume and simply chop the databases up by directories under the single logical volume?

I would like to have more disks to work with..
in fact they may buy 3 more..So for my questions above, how would having 8 disks instead of 5 change the suggested layout.

Thank you in advance.

[Torsten.]

Hi,

sounds like you are running linux on a proliant with smartarray controller.

You are here in hp-ux forum, so consider to ask in linux or server forum.

However, the RAID10 config with multiple logical drive will be a good option.