Hardware RAID on Arch?

Hello~ I'm buying myself a new PC soon and I was really looking forward to putting Arch on it but the problem is is that I cheaped out on the mobo so I have to get a $20 PCI raid card in order to put my new 160gbs in RAID0, the only problem is that of course the only drivers supplied are for Windows, and I'm not sure how to go about doing this on Arch / any other linux distro because I'm simply not the best at the linux environment. So yeah, any comments are appeciated. Oh, and if it matters, here's the link to the card I'll be getting: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a … 6816132008

dr0p wrote:Okay, well if it's supported, how would I set it up just like in the software raid article I read?
I think you're getting confused now...
Software RAID and Hardware RAID are separate things. If you have Hardware RAID, you don't need to use Software RAID. The RAID array will just appear like a normal hard drive to Linux and the Hardware controller will take care of the RAID part.
Software RAID can be used instead of hardware RAID to save costs (no hardware controller required). Software RAID is generally slower than hardware RAID, but not noticable in desktop applications.

Similar Messages

Problem with Installation on DELL Poweredge with Hardware RAID 1

Hello Arch LInux community,
I am a newbee with good linux knowledge of working on linux but not much of systems administration. I am very much interested to install Arch Linux on my new desktop which is a Dell poweredge having hardware RAID 1(PERC .... controller). It has windows 7 OS on its first partition.
I saw on the controller's BIOS menu that there are 2 1tb hard drives with something like --:--:00 and --:--:01 labels. And they were partitioned into two logical volumes which are visible once I boot into Arch linux live CD as, /dev/sda (about 250GB, and has windows OS on it) and /dev/sdb (about 700GB).
Firstly, I am confused with the hard disk labels: even though they are logical partitions (i.e: combined by RAID 1, they are seen as /dev/sda and /dev/sdb). In the arch linux Beginner's wiki, there is some description on configuring for RAID, which included mdadm or mdadm_udev module specification. I did include these modules, and followed the installatin instructions carefully. I was trying to install on /dev/sdb, with the following partitioning:
Sector map of partitions on /dev/sdb : 1542848512 : 735.7 GiB
Disk identifier (GUID) : 967BF308-6E5E-43AD-AB2E-94EB975C3603
First usable sector = 34 Last usable sector = 1542848478
Total free space is 2023 sectors
Number    Start End    Size    Code Name
   34 2047       FREE
1    2048 2099199    1024.0 MiB EF00    EFI System
2    2099200 2103295    2.0 MiB EF02 BIOS boot partition
3    2103296 2615295    250.0 MiB 8300 Linux filesystem
4    2615296 212330495    100.0 GiB 8300 Linux filesystem
5    212330496 317188095 50.0 GiB 8300 Linux filesystem
6    317188096 1541924863 584.0 GiB 8300    Linux filesystem
   1541924864 1542848478       FREE
The instruction on the Beginner's wiki is somewhat difficult to understand for beginners. Especially I wasn't sure whether to make EFI System partition and BIOS boot partition or just EFI system partition. So I made both as per the instructions.
Is using UEFI compulsory, on UEFI based systems?
A little bit more sub-headings or division of instructions, in the Beginner's wiki, based on the usage scenarios can be very beneficial for newbees like me.
I am finally getting the following error when I select the Arch Linux from the GRUB menu. Why it can't find the device? I shall wait for your initial responses, and will give more specifics of my installation to find out any wrong step that I may have made.
[ 0.748399] megasas: INIT adapter done
ERROR: device 'UUID=40e603e9-7285-4ec8-8a06-a579358a52a0' not found. Skipping fsck
ERROR: Unable to find root device 'UUID=40e603e9-7285-4ec8-8a06-a579358a52a0' .
You are being dropped to a recovery shell
Type 'exit' to try and continue booting
Sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
[rootfs /]#

Well, you can see your RAID partitions and you're getting GRUB to load, and you are even being dropped to the recovery shell which means that the /boot partition is being found and is accessible. All vary, vary good things.
I would boot into the Arch live CD/USB again. Then check the UUID of the / Root partition. To do this I just check the log listing of /dev/disk/by-uuid
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid
Hopefully the UUID for the /root partition in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg is incorrect, and all you need to do is change it from 'UUID=40e603e9-7285-4ec8-8a06-a579358a52a0' to the correct UUID.
If the UUID is correct... then maybe the correct driver module is not complied into the initramfs. You could try adding that mdadm to the MODULES= list in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf then rebuild the initramfs again.
mkinitcpio -p linux
Hum..., the whole /dev/sda and /dev/sdb.... hum, You know... Maybe you need to change the line in /boot/grub/grub.cfg
set root='hd1,msdos1'
The hd1 is the equivalent to /dev/sda and the msdos1 is the equivalent of the First Partition i.e. /dev/sda1.. (note this is my disk yours may correctly have different numbers and not be a msdos partition)... owe wait... hum, you know I am fairly sure that like is really the root disk where the /boot partition is and has no relation to the / Root partition... Someone clear that up please.... It is hard for me to recall and I have my / Root parition encrypted, so It is hard for me to make heads or tails of that one right now, but that could be the problem too i.e. try changing hd1 to hd2 or hd0 or something.
Owe, and it may be faster if you just make temporary corrections to the GRUB menu by hitting the "e" key on the menu entry you want to change then hit.. I think F10 to boot the modified entry. That way you don't need to keep booting into the Live CD/USB
Last edited by hunterthomson (2012-09-20 05:52:33)

Best protocol for dual booting on a hardware RAID 0 array?

Hi folks. I would like to dual boot Windows 7 and Arch. I'll append the specs. I have a Terrabyte to split evenly between the two drives - each is 500G. Unless someone can come up with a reason and convince me otherwise, I want to do away with the RAID array. There's no redundancy anyhow and the speed I would lose breaking the array is negligible, therefore irrelevant.
My issue is that I have a RAID 0 hardware array with Intel Rapid Storage Technology as the controller. The computer did NOT come with a Windows disk, but rather a recovery partition. It is my understanding that if I break the array, I will lose the recovery partition and will not be able to reinstall Windows - which I need. IF....the recovery partition can be unphased by breaking the array and I can use it to reinstall Windows, I would prefer that since I may need to recover Windows in the future. It's not a deal breaker if I can't keep the recovery partition, since I have the Windows key.
Is this the ideal protocol?:
1. Backup - I plan on using Alienware Respawn or Clonezilla to backup to a CD and will also backup to an external drive.
2. Break array, but do not alter BIOS to AHCI - leave as RAID.
3. Restore Windows on one drive.
4. Install Arch on second drive.
5. Configure GRUB.
6. Smoke stogie or alternatively weep because I turned my computer into a brick.
At which stage does the partitioning come in? Before or after breaking the array? Is there a better method, than the one I listed. I have spent days scouring Google and the forums and while it's easy to find info on breaking a hardware RAID, there isn't much on doing this with the recovery partition and Alienware Respawn aspects involved. Any help would be appreciated. Please don't kill me or shred my diameter.
==================================================================================
Specs:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 740 @ 1.73GHz 1.73 Ghz: 8 Intel(R) Core (TM) i7 CPU q740 @ 1.73GHz
Installed Memory: 8.00 GB RAM
64 Bit Operating System
Alienware M17X10
Windows 7 Home Premium
Performance Options: DEP turned on. Virtual Memory: 8180 MB
Architecture: AMD64 Intel64 Family 6 Model 30 Stepping 5, GenuineIntel
Computer: ACPI x64-based PC
Display Adapters: 2 ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5800 Series
DVD/CD-ROOM: HL-DT-ST DVDRWBD CA10N
IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers: Ricoh PCIe Memory Stick Host Controller, Ricoh PCIe SD/MMC Host Controller, and Ricoh PCIe xD-Picture Card Controller
IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers: Ricoh 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller
Imaging devices: Integrated Webcam
Mice; 3 HID-Compliant Mouse and Synaptics PS/2 Port Toch Pad
Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor
Sound, video and game controllers: AMD High Definition Audio Device and High Definition Audio Device
Storage Controllers: Intel(R) Mobile Express Chipset SATA RAID Controller

I think the big thing will be backing up. I don't know anything about the two programs you would use, but I know that if I dd copy the disks, I would have to change the size of the partitions to match the size of the new partitions. IE: I have Arch installed on a RAID0 of 32GB each, and if I wanted to break my RAID and install on just one disk, I would have to shrink the size of my dd'ed copy to match the smaller drive.
Otherwise, it looks like you have the right idea, or at least the right direction.

Using a Mac Pro w / Apple Internal Hardware RAID Card?

Anyone using a Mac Pro with a Apple Hardware RAID Card 2010?
( I have a 12 Core )
Is it worth the $600-700 ?
How much faster than the software RAID 0?
I see Hamm's RAID tips chart .. but it doesn't include such options .. plus it is based on a PC system.
Any tips would be great ..
I find many areas where the application is slow / unresponsive .. and I'm not sure where the bottleneck is ... Maybe the hardware RAID will solve it?
I'm really am impressed with CS5 .. it would be even better with some adjustments .. but I am absolutely disappointed with sluggish performance on my top-of-the-line Mac Pro 12 Core.
This is not what I expected for a $8,000 machine.
Some users says that the port of CS5 for the Mac has taken a back seat to the Windows version at Adobe.
I can't imagine that Adobe would not put 100% effort into Mac products.
Go Team!!!

I have a 2009 Mac Pro 3.33GHz Quad core w/ Apple RAID card, 16GB RAM from OWC, and Apple's Radeon HD 5870 GPU.
I have RAID 0 set across 3x1TB drives internally, and the standard 640GB drive for OSX and all program files. I set all video assets, renders, previews and such on the 3TB RAID.
This seems to work wonderfully. I built this system specifically to edit a feature film shot on P2 DVCProHD, and I've been impressed with how it handles it. This was all built prior to CS5, which took me by surprise. Had I known nVidia would become such a problem for Apple, I would have built a PC, but that's another story.
I just started a new project in CS5 on the same system, this time using H.264 video from my Nikon D7000, and so far, it seems to play just as nicely, despite not having hardware acceleration via CUDA technology. Yellow bars on top, even. I haven't had any problems with clips taking a long time to populate on the timeline or any of that, so perhaps the RAID card helps there.
All this aside, I've already decided to upgrade my RAID for another reason. Right now, my backup is performed via an eSATA-connected external drive through a PCI eSATA card. After every edit session, I dump everything on the RAID onto the external drive, and it goes much faster than the old FW800 transfer used to. I'm about to replace my Apple RAID card with an Areca card and set up a 4-bay RAID 3 via an SAS connection. This will allow for excellent data throughput while offering more security than my current RAID 0 / manual backup system, and free up the internal drives for backups, exports and render files.
I believe in hardware RAID, but I'm not as knowledgeable as Harm and others are about it. I had my Mac built to order with the Apple RAID card, so I have no experience using Premiere with a software RAID. Due to my smooth experience using it, I think it was worth it, but plenty of people say the Apple RAID card is rubbish, and to go with Areca or Atto cards. I didn't know about them until after I built my system, and even though it will cost a couple thousand to upgrade my RAID from this point, I expect to have an even better system than I already have.
I hope this helps, and feel free to ask any questions I didn't address.

My hardware RAID 1 only showing up in disk utility and not finder.

Last week I finally was able to take my early 2011 iMac in to have my Seagate 1TB hard drive replaced for the recall.
Late 2010 model iMac
OS X 10.6.8
OWC Mercury Elite Pro 4TB x 4TB Hardware RAID
When I took it in the RAID 1 was working just fine. When I finally got the iMac back and booted everything up the RAID 1 was getting the dialog box that read "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."
I have tried going into disk utility to see if I can verify the disk and then saw it is coming up as two different volumes... Along with those two different volumes, I can not go to click verify as it is greyed out.
I contacted OWC and they said they have never heard of this and had two solutions, to try a software like diskwarrior, or if that didnt work I can take the drives out and try another external dock to see if it is the RAID hardware.
If anyone has any ideas as to what could help with this situation that would be great as I was under the impression (and told by a number of other people) that having a RAID 1 as my backup was good and should not need anything else. I just want to be able to get all the data off then I will rebuild it or send it into OWC.
Thanks!!!!

So a fault in the Hardware Raid controller could make it not read properly? I am planning on having a good backup set up after this!
As for the screenshot, the original was not set up with the SoftRaid. When I got the computer back I installed that to see if that may pick it up and make it at least readable to save the data on it. The two in question are the highlighted 4TB drives, which befor also read as one drive as it was set up in the OWC enclosure as a hardware raid.

Solaris 10 X86 - Hardware RAID - SMC/SVM question...

I have gotten back into Sun Solaris System Administration after a five year hiatus... My skills are a little rusty and some of the tools have changed, so here is are my questions...
I have installed Solaris 10 release 1/06 on a Dell 1850 with an attached PowrVault 220v connected to a Perc 4 Di controller. The RAID is configured via BIOS interface to my liking, Solaris is installed and see's all my partitions which I created during install.
For testing purposes, the servers internal disk is used for the OS, the PowerVault is split into 2 RAID's - one is a mirror, one is a stripe...
The question is; do I manage the RAID using Sun Management Console and the tools OR do I use SMC?
When I launch SMC and go into Enhanced Storage... I do not see any RAID's... If I select "Disks" I do see them, but when I select them, it wants to run "FDISK" on them... now this is OK since they are blank but I want to ensure I am not doing sometinhg I should not be concerned with...
If the PERC controller is controlling the RAID, what do I need SMC for?

You can use SMC for other purposes but it won't help your with RAID.
Sol 10 1/06 has raidctl which handles LSI1030 and LSI1064 RAID�enabled controllers (from raidctl(1M)).
Some of the PERCs (most?) are LSI but I don't know if they are chipsets used by your PoweEdge (I doubt it).
Generally you can break it down like this for x86:
If you are using hardware RAID with Solaris 10 x86 you have to use pre-Solaris (i.e. on the RAID controller) managment or hope that the manufacturer of the device has a Solaris managment agent/interface (good luck).
The only exception to this that I know of is the RAID that comes with V20z, V40z, X4100, X4200.
Otherwise you will want to go with SVM or VxVM and manage RAID within Solaris (software RAID).
SMC etc are only going to show you stuff if SVM is involved and VxVM has its own interface, otherwise the disks are controlled by PERC and just hanging out as far as Solaris is concerned.
Hope this helps.

Systemd-fsck complains that my hardware raid is in use and fail init

Hi all,
I have a hardware raid of two sdd drives. It seems to be properly recongnized everywhere and I can mount it manually and use it without any problem. The issue is that when I add it to the /etc/fstab My system do not start anymore cleanly.
I get the following error( part of the journalctl messages) :
Jan 12 17:16:21 biophys02.phys.tut.fi systemd[1]: Found device /dev/md126p1.
Jan 12 17:16:21 biophys02.phys.tut.fi systemd[1]: Starting File System Check on /dev/md126p1...
Jan 12 17:16:21 biophys02.phys.tut.fi systemd-fsck[523]: /dev/md126p1 is in use. <--------------------- THIS ERROR
Jan 12 17:16:21 biophys02.phys.tut.fi systemd-fsck[523]: e2fsck: Cannot continue, aborting.<----------- THIS ERROR
Jan 12 17:16:21 biophys02.phys.tut.fi systemd-fsck[523]: fsck failed with error code 8.
Jan 12 17:16:21 biophys02.phys.tut.fi systemd-fsck[523]: Ignoring error.
Jan 12 17:16:22 biophys02.phys.tut.fi systemd[1]: Started File System Check on /dev/md126p1.
Jan 12 17:16:22 biophys02.phys.tut.fi systemd[1]: Mounting /home1...
Jan 12 17:16:22 biophys02.phys.tut.fi mount[530]: mount: /dev/md126p1 is already mounted or /home1 busy
Jan 12 17:16:22 biophys02.phys.tut.fi systemd[1]: home1.mount mount process exited, code=exited status=32
Jan 12 17:16:22 biophys02.phys.tut.fi systemd[1]: Failed to mount /home1.
Jan 12 17:16:22 biophys02.phys.tut.fi systemd[1]: Dependency failed for Local File Systems.
Does anybody undersand what is going on. Who is mounting the /dev/md126p1 previous the systemd-fsck. This is my /etc/fstab:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# /dev/sda1
UUID=4d9f4374-fe4e-4606-8ee9-53bc410b74b9 / ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 1
#home raid 0
/dev/md126p1 /home1 ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 1
The issue is that after the error I'm droped to the emergency mode console and just pressing cantrol+D to continues boots the system and the mount point seems okay. This is the output of 'system show home1.mount':
Id=home1.mount
Names=home1.mount
Requires=systemd-journald.socket [email protected] -.mount
Wants=local-fs-pre.target
BindsTo=dev-md126p1.device
RequiredBy=local-fs.target
WantedBy=dev-md126p1.device
Conflicts=umount.target
Before=umount.target local-fs.target
After=local-fs-pre.target systemd-journald.socket dev-md126p1.device [email protected] -.mount
Description=/home1
LoadState=loaded
ActiveState=active
SubState=mounted
FragmentPath=/run/systemd/generator/home1.mount
SourcePath=/etc/fstab
InactiveExitTimestamp=Sat, 2013-01-12 17:18:27 EET
InactiveExitTimestampMonotonic=130570087
ActiveEnterTimestamp=Sat, 2013-01-12 17:18:27 EET
ActiveEnterTimestampMonotonic=130631572
ActiveExitTimestampMonotonic=0
InactiveEnterTimestamp=Sat, 2013-01-12 17:16:22 EET
InactiveEnterTimestampMonotonic=4976341
CanStart=yes
CanStop=yes
CanReload=yes
CanIsolate=no
StopWhenUnneeded=no
RefuseManualStart=no
RefuseManualStop=no
AllowIsolate=no
DefaultDependencies=no
OnFailureIsolate=no
IgnoreOnIsolate=yes
IgnoreOnSnapshot=no
DefaultControlGroup=name=systemd:/system/home1.mount
ControlGroup=cpu:/system/home1.mount name=systemd:/system/home1.mount
NeedDaemonReload=no
JobTimeoutUSec=0
ConditionTimestamp=Sat, 2013-01-12 17:18:27 EET
ConditionTimestampMonotonic=130543582
ConditionResult=yes
Where=/home1
What=/dev/md126p1
Options=rw,relatime,rw,stripe=64,data=ordered
Type=ext4
TimeoutUSec=1min 30s
ExecMount={ path=/bin/mount ; argv[]=/bin/mount /dev/md126p1 /home1 -t ext4 -o rw,relatime,data=ordered ; ignore_errors=no ; start_time=[Sat, 2013-01-12 17:18:27 EET] ; stop_time=[Sat, 2013-
ControlPID=0
DirectoryMode=0755
Result=success
UMask=0022
LimitCPU=18446744073709551615
LimitFSIZE=18446744073709551615
LimitDATA=18446744073709551615
LimitSTACK=18446744073709551615
LimitCORE=18446744073709551615
LimitRSS=18446744073709551615
LimitNOFILE=4096
LimitAS=18446744073709551615
LimitNPROC=1031306
LimitMEMLOCK=65536
LimitLOCKS=18446744073709551615
LimitSIGPENDING=1031306
LimitMSGQUEUE=819200
LimitNICE=0
LimitRTPRIO=0
LimitRTTIME=18446744073709551615
OOMScoreAdjust=0
Nice=0
IOScheduling=0
CPUSchedulingPolicy=0
CPUSchedulingPriority=0
TimerSlackNSec=50000
CPUSchedulingResetOnFork=no
NonBlocking=no
StandardInput=null
StandardOutput=journal
StandardError=inherit
TTYReset=no
TTYVHangup=no
TTYVTDisallocate=no
SyslogPriority=30
SyslogLevelPrefix=yes
SecureBits=0
CapabilityBoundingSet=18446744073709551615
MountFlags=0
PrivateTmp=no
PrivateNetwork=no
SameProcessGroup=yes
ControlGroupModify=no
ControlGroupPersistent=no
IgnoreSIGPIPE=yes
NoNewPrivileges=no
KillMode=control-group
KillSignal=15
SendSIGKILL=yes
Last edited by hseara (2013-01-13 19:31:00)

Hi Hatter, I'm a little confused about your statement not to use raid right now. I'm new to the Mac, awaiting the imminent delivery of my first Mac Pro Quad core with 1tb RAID10 setup. As far as I know, it's software raid, not the raid card (pricey!). My past understanding about raid10 on any system is that it offers you the best combination for speed and safety (backups) since the drives are a striped and mirrored, one drive dies, quick replacement and you're up and running a ton quicker than if you had gone RAID5 (20 mins writes per 5G data?)Or were you suggesting not to do raid with the raid card..?
I do plan to use an external drive for archival backups of settings, setups etc, because as we all know, if the best fool proof plans can be kicked in the knees by Murhpy.
My rig is destined to be my video editing machine so the combo of Quad core, 4G+ memory and Raid10 should make this quite the machine.. but I'm curious why you wouldn't suggest raid..
And if you could explain this one: I see in the forums a lot of people are running Bootcamp Parralels(sp) which I assume is what you use to run mulitple OS on your Mac systems so that you can run MacOS and Windblows on the same machine.. but why is everyone leaning towards Vista when thems of us on Windblows are trying to avoid it like the plague? I've already dumped Vista from two PCs and installed XP for a quicker less bloated PC. Is vista the only MSOS that will co-exist with Mac systems? Just curious..
Thanks in advance.. Good Holidays

HT204053 hi i want to use find my mac but i got this massage (some configurations, such as software or hardware RAID,do not support a recovery partition and can't be used with find my mac)

hi i want to use find my mac but i got this massage (some configurations, such as software or hardware RAID,do not support a recovery partition and can't be used with find my mac)

hi i want to use find my mac but i got this massage (some configurations, such as software or hardware RAID,do not support a recovery partition and can't be used with find my mac)

Some configurations such as a software or hardware RAID do not support a recovery partition and can't be used with Find My Mac.

I'm getting the following error message when attempting to invoke "Find My Mac"
Some configurations such as a software or hardware RAID do not support a recovery partition and can't be used with Find My Mac.

You have no recovery partition. This is a normal condition if your boot volume is a software RAID, or if you modified the partition table after running Boot Camp Assistant to create a Windows partition. Otherwise, you need to reinstall OS X in order to add a recovery partition.
If you don't have a current backup, you need to back up before you do anything else.
You have several options for reinstalling.
1. If you have access to a local, unencrypted Time Machine backup volume, and if that volume has a backup of a Mac (not necessarily this one) that was running the same major version of OS X and did have a Recovery partition, then you can boot from the Time Machine volume into Recovery by holding down the option key at the startup chime. Encrypted Time Machine volumes are not bootable, nor are network backups.
2. If your Mac shipped with OS X 10.7 or later preinstalled, or if it's one of the computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery, you may be able to netboot from an Apple server by holding down the key combination option-R at the startup chime. Release the keys when you see a spinning globe.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with proxy servers, or with networks that require a certificate for authentication.
3. Use Recovery Disk Assistant (RDA) on another Mac running the same major version of OS X as yours to create a bootable USB device. Boot your Mac from the device by holding down the option key at startup.Warning: All existing data on the USB device will be erased when you use RDA.
Once you've booted into Recovery, the OS X Utilities screen will appear. Follow the prompts to reinstall OS X. You don't need to erase the boot volume, and you won't need your backup unless something goes wrong. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade, so make a note of those before you begin.
If none of the above choices is open to you, then you'll have to start over from an OS X 10.6.8 installation. There's no need to overwrite your existing boot volume; you can use an external drive. Install 10.6 from the DVD you originally used to upgrade, or that came with the machine. Run Software Update and install all available updates. Log into the App Store with the Apple ID you used to buy 10.7 or later, and download the installer. When you run it, be sure to choose the right drive to install on.

X2100 hardware RAID support

Got a new X2100 server with two SATA disks.
I upgraded the BIOS using the Supplemental 1.1 disk. The BIOS revision reported is now 1.0.3.
Have defined a hardware RAID mirror of two SATA disks using the BIOS utility. Looks Ok and is reported as "Healty Mirror" when the machine is turned on.
If I boot Fedora Core 4 (which is not officially supported by Sun) I see two disks instead of one as expected.
If I boot Solaris 10 1/96 (which IS supported) then no disks are found!
So my question is: Does anyone know if the HW RAID system on the X2100 is supported at all? And if it is, how?

Have you looked the procedure in this manual?
http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hardware/docs/html/8 19-3720-11/Chap2.html
Also there seems to be a lack of drivers available with some operating systems ( W2003 ) on the X2100, this could be the case with FC4 ( although I use FC4 on a notebook and it seems very close to RHEL 4, but without RHEL graphics, clustering and other tools ). In the InfoDoc section of the spectrum handbook for the X2100, there is a document that discusses configuring SVM on x64 systems, at the begining the author recommends using the hardware RAID utility, this may suggest that it is supported. You should take a look through the system documentation to see if you have missed something, I'd be interested to know if you set the BIOS up for the various OS types!

Software or Hardware RAID for LVM

Well, I've been looking into setting up a RAID for my home server. I've been trying to decide between a software raid or buying a relatively cheap SATA controller and using it for a hardware RAID. I'm trying to figure out the pros and cons of buying a cheap hardware card for use rather than simply using a software solution.
Are there any negatives to using LVM with either setup versus the other? Have software solutions become decent enough to be relied on?
If you recommend a hardware solution, a card suggestion would be appreciated. Preferably something under $50.. if that's even possible for a semi reliable card.
I'm also curious as to whether there would be an issue with software raid if it is run across multiple SATA controllers. Can you even run a single hardware RAID using 2 separate controllers?
Appreciate any advice!
EDIT: I'd also appreciate any information on the processor overhead of running a software RAID 5 with 5-6 disks. The home server is just an old Core2 and doesn't have all that much power to it.
Last edited by nedlinin (2012-01-05 00:35:03)

Anntoin wrote:
Stick with the software RAID, more flexible and probably more reliable. Hardware RAID only - arguably - becomes worth it if you have fancy stuff like a battery backed write cache, etc...
I'd avoid using RAID 5 and go for something like RAID 1+0, look up 'RAID 5 write hole'.
The processor overhead should be quite low even on a Core2.
The wiki has a bunch on info on RAID and LVM:
e.g. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/So … ID_and_LVM
Appreciate the info. I've actually been reading over the RAID/LVM wiki over the past couple days making sure I get myself aligned to what needs to be done.
As far as avoiding RAID 5, I was specifically choosing it as it allows for some form of backup while giving me a large amount of hard drive space. I will be using 6x2TB drives in the array and using a RAID1 would end up giving me half of it usable, RAID5 giving me 10TB usable. Right now each of the drives are on their own so even with the write hole issues I'd assume I'd be better off with the RAID 5 then simply having the drives separate no?
I don't simply want to put all 6 drives into a LV as I'd be worried about one failing and losing more data than each drive on their own.

Updating a Hardware RAID array

I'm running a recent Mac Pro model with Hardware RAID and four 1TB SATA drives.
Seagate 1.5TB drives are now available, and they're cheaper than the 1TB drives were just a few months ago.
My Infrant/Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ implements a proprietary form of RAID that they called X-RAID, similar to RAID-5 but with the feature that you can swap larger drives into the array one at a time, and when you're done, the RAID will be re-synced to make use of the additional storage without requiring that you dump and restore the contents of the array. The final re-sync is an admittedly long process (it took three days for mine to update from 4x750GB to 4x1TB) but it's still a very convenient feature.
Does Hardware RAID on Mac OS X have anything like this, i.e. can I replace 1TB drives one at a time with 1.5TB drives and preserve my data? And when I'm done, will the system recognize and use the new storage?
If not, could someone please describe the procedure that I would need to go through in order to achieve this? I presume that I would need to recreate the RAID array entirely, re-install the OS, and then restore the system from my Time Machine backup. But I'm not sure of the details.
I'd appreciate any help with this. Thanks.
An aside: I was more than a little upset a few months ago when I called Apple Support for help with initial setup of my RAID array (I have Apple Care) and was told "Sorry, we don't support Hardware RAID." So Apple was quite happy to sell me an $800 piece of hardware for my lavish new system but didn't bother to tell me at time of purchase that my configuration was "unsupported." It seems a little outrageous to me.
Given Apple's refusal to help me I need to ask the community for help with problems like this.

Hi rrgomes;
Never having heard of X-RAID but going by your comment that is similar to RAID5 I would have to say that you will not be able to upgrade by replacing one disk at a time.
As to no support for the RAID card, I personally would not have taken his word for that. Instead I would have escalated it up through Customer Service just to be sure before I gave up on that point. To me the response you got there sounds bogus.
Allan

Hardware Raid 1 with 890GXM-G54

I have just built a new system with Win 7 Pro and the 890GXM-G65. I have a SSD for the boot drive, I'm using ACHI for the SDD. Trying to get two identical HDDs setup in hardware RAID 1 for data storage. I have loaded the AMD RAID drivers from the MSI site. I setup the array from the BIOS by switching out the ACHI option to RAID. I switched back to ACHI so the system would boot off the SSD.
In Win7 Pro, I formatted the drives and indicated a mirror. Am I only getting a software non-bootable RAID solution? I would like to use a hardware RAID if at all possible.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
drob9876

Quote
I switched back to ACHI so the system would boot off the SSD.
When you switch back to AHCI, the controller is no longer in RAID Mode...
Quote
I would like to use a hardware RAID if at all possible.
Well, first of all, 99% of all chipset integrated RAID Suppport solution are soft-RAIDs and no true hardware RAID Solutions. In any case, your controller needs to remain in RAID mode to properly support the volume your created.

How to destroy hardware raid on T5120

Hi,
I have problem creating hardware raid on T5120 with 4 disks. After the hardware raid 1 created, then I used the raidctl -l c1t0d0 and raidctl -l c1t2d0
the output of volume c1t0d0 contain disk 0.0.0 0.1.0, also the volume c1t2d0 contain disk 0.0.0 0.1.0 and should be 0.2.0 0.3.0
so I destroy both volume and then i issued command raidctl, the out shows controller 1 with disk 0.0.0 0.1.0 0.2.0 0.3.0, I thought output should be no raid volume found.
Anyone knows how to complete destroy the hardware.
Thanks for your help!

Give root password to your Windows admin? :)
http://dlc.sun.com/pdf/820-2179-11/820-2179-11.pdf
To Delete a Hardware RAID Volume
# raidctl
Controller: 1
Volume:c1t0d0
Disk: 0.0.0
Disk: 0.1.0
# raidctl -d c1t0d0

Warning Hardware RAID ALERT: (0x0008/1) - Battery removed' (attempt #0)

Warning <Hardware> RAID ALERT: (0x0008/1) - Battery removed' (attempt #0)
Please, help me to understand what it means. Server Ironport c350. Every restart I can see this event in system.current in /system_log/

Hello Igor,
please open a service request with support, as your RAID battery (the battery on the RAID controller) requires a replacement here.
Thanks and regards,
Martin

Hardware RAID on Arch?

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