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Is it possible to mirror the Ubuntu 16.04/16.10 boot or system disk, for example using mdadm? The only example I've seen online is for an older version of Debian, and is 3 pages long with dozens of instructions. Such a fundamental system administration task should have very explicit and complete documentation, and should be simple and straight forward to accomplish, and yet there are no docs to follow! Why? Just as a footnote, another popular OS allows this operation at installation. And post-install, the zfs procedures for doing it are basically 3 instructions.

Robert M. Koretsky
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  • Kaz wolfe: 1) Have you actually tried the Arch Wiki instructions on Ubuntu? 2) The Ubuntu 14.04 case does not mention mirroring the system, or boot, disk. I'm not willing to spend time on instructions that no one in the Ubuntu community has tried, plus this just verifies my suspicion that it cannot be done, no matter how little a problem you say it is. – Robert M. Koretsky Dec 21 '16 at 23:15

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Yeah, there's no problem at all with mirroring the Ubuntu install disk.

Some quick google-fu brings up an Arch Wiki article with rather explicit instructions for how to set up RAID 1. However, the caveat being these instructions are written for Arch, but the procedure is still generally the same.

Furthermore, instructions written specifically for Ubuntu (14.04 in this case) are also available on this very site! The procedure using mdadm is really the same no matter what guide you follow.

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Kaz Wolfe
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    @user68186 I would say similar, but not a duplicate. But I'll let the commuity as a whole decide that. – Kaz Wolfe Dec 20 '16 at 17:59
  • The Arch Wiki instructions are even questionable on the Arch Wiki site! I don't see how you can say they are transposable to Ubuntu, unless of course you have tried them and they work. – Robert M. Koretsky Dec 21 '16 at 23:16
  • @RobertM.Koretsky mdadm is the same tool everywhere, and with the exception of GRUB, the Arch toolchain should work on Ubuntu. Also, RAID-1 is the type of RAID used when one drive is a mirror of another. – Kaz Wolfe Dec 21 '16 at 23:18
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    "should" is not "does". I would strongly advise anyone considering using the Arch Wiki instructions to not do it. For another thing, the original Arch disk had only one partition on it. That's pretty suspicious to begin with. The only other alternative, suggested by someone else, was to use Clonezilla to clone the two disks, then possibly use mdadm to create the mirror. I haven't tried this, but if I have the time I will. – Robert M. Koretsky Dec 22 '16 at 16:54