Hardware requirements:
One Hard-drive for the OS
I used Western Digital Velocity Raptor 10000rpm 150GB (great performance) $160
Two Hard-drives for /home
I used my existing two 500GB Segate 7200rpm @$60 allup $120
Step 1:
Ensure correct BIOS boot sequence: first DVD-Drive, second OS Drive
You may want to backup some of your most important data onto DVD or other device.
Step 2:
Install OS onto the drive dedicated to the OS
Partition 20 GB for OS (maybe a bit of an overkill)
Partition 5-10 GB for Swap (again overkill)
Partition rest, in my case mount /backup
Mount existing /home (DO NOT Format)
Install
Now you should see all your Data including desktop settings.
Step 3:
Via super user:
Copy all your user data INCLUDING hidden files. ( The Hidden files contain your desktop settings, mail, mail-config, mail passwords.) to /backup (see above). View /backup if your user data have been copied.
Step 4
Logout and login as root.
Delete via yast your user account. This deletes all your user data in /home (these data should be now in /backup.owned by root)
Via Yast go into “Partitioner” unmount /home
Step 5
The Raid partitions have to be approx the same size !!!
Via Yast go into “Partitioner”. Ensure that all Drives/partitions are visible!
Klick on Raid
Selcet Raid 1
Add Raid partitions
Mount at /home
The system will format these partitions, so the data on these partitions will be lost for good. See backup above.
Klick OK…finished.
Step 6
Via Yast create your new user account.
Via Yast Partitioner mount /home/yourusername/backup
Step 7
Reboot (do not know if this is necessary)
You will see your new user environment with standard desktop.
Step 8
Copy ALL (including hidden files) from /home/yourusername/backup into /home/yourusername
The system will ask “write into or overwrite” say yes to all.
This will take some time and the resync for raid adds some additional time. Be patient.
Step 9
Make sure you can see all your userdata !
Reboot (maybe logout/login will do too) and all your original Desktop Settings, Mail, Data etc should be available.
Step 10
To ensure that the daemons are working, go into Yast System Services (Runlevel), select Expert mode.
Select “mdadm”
Configure B 2 3 5 S
Start save finish.
By “try and error” I found the option “S” allocates RAM to the daemon.
Step 11
Install all your apps which do not come with the standard install.
Step 12
How do you know if it is working? Go into KDE systems Monitor and add sensors
I hope I have not left anything out.
Anyway, this worked for me. Please comment to complete the HOWTO
Thanks for viewing and comments.
Cheers Otto