<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii"> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.5.7226.0"> <TITLE>Question about RAID set names</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY>  Hi, I'm working on a metadata handler for dmraid, and I'm a bit confused about the construction of RAID set names. Does the name need to stay the same for the lifetime of the array? Does it need to be unique? And what's the relationship between /dev/mapper and /dev/dm-* devices? I noticed that when an array, say, /dev/mapper/nvraid_abcdefgh is activated, a /dev/dm-0 also appears. I can run fdisk and mkfs, etc. on both of them. After reboot, /dev/mapper/nvraid_abcdefgh still exists but cannot be opened, where as /dev/dm-0 no longer exists. After running dmraid -ay, /dev/dm-0 appears again. If I change the RAID set name to "nvraid_blah", then running "dmraid -ay" creates /dev/mapper/nvraid_blah as well as /dev/dm-0. So it seems that /dev/dm-* enumeration is independent of the RAID set names. Does that mean it's OK to change the RAID set name during the lifetime of the set? Thanks in advance for any help. Jane </BODY> </HTML>