Trying to understand some of the installation documention

Hi folk, I have what I'm sure is not a new problem, and the documentation appears to offer a way forward, but I'm afraid it's not completely clear.

I would like to create a NAS device using a mobo that has 4 SATA ports. I'd like to put a drive on each of these ports ( i.e. no CD/DVD ). I would like to use a RAID5 configuration, using Intel Matrix raid to deal with the 4 drives. I've used Intel Matrix raid ( BIOS raid ) with many systems, including Ubuntu which is debian based, and it works for me.

The documentation for the ISO install ( which I would need to do from a USB stick ) appears to say that it does not handle partitioning of devices. Therefore, it would treat the entire unpartitioned RAID5 volume as rootfs, leaving no drive for data.

However, somewhere else in the documentation it appears to say that if there is an existing 'rootfs' partition from a previous Debian install, it will install to this partition.

So in theory, the solution to my problem is to install Debian, partitioning the drive in the process into rootfs and data, and then install the OMV iso.

Is this interpretation correct ?

Thanks for the quick response !

I think this is what the documentation refers to as 'Installation on Debian'. I was actually trying to avoid that, just because it wasn't clear to me what the difference is between what I end up with using the ISO install and what I end up with using the 'on Debian' install. It just felt like there might be more potential for problems that way. If the OMV iso really is only the standard Debian Netinstall iso plus OMV, then that isn't the case of course.

The documentation text I was trying to make sense of is from the FAQ ( sorry, should have put this in the OP ) :

Zitat

However if the OS disk is partitioned the system will recognise the extra partitions besides rootfs if is formatted. You can mount it and use it for shared folders.

The current installer does not provide access to the partition manager, use a plain Debian iso then install openmediavault on top and accommodate the partitions, or resize the partition after installing using Gparted or SystemRescueCd.

I was interpreting 'install openmediavault on top and accomodate the partitions' as being to install the iso after doing partitioning via Debian - but you are saying that this is not the case, and it is referring to 'Installation on Debian' ?

I don't believe I have the option of using Gparted from the Debian ( or OMV ) install, that's a GUI tool ( at least, that's the only way I've used it ), which is not allowed with version 6. I could probably put SystemRescueCD or equivalent on a USB stick, and then try resizing root and making a data partition. Looks like the only option, if I really want to use the iso.