Hello, I'm a newbie so here's my question. I'm trying to install CentOS 6.5 on a HP Proliant 350e server. This server has 4x 1TB hard drives. I'd like to enable the hardware RAID 5 and stripe all 4 disk into one 3TB logical volume. Then install CentOS on the 3TB volume. However after I install I can't get the server to boot. I know about the MDOS vs GPT labeling issue. I've successfully installed on one (singular) 3TB disk on other servers. I have modified the partition tables, relabeling them to GPT, prior to completing the installs. However I've read that the Anaconda installer still tries to format as MDOS and after installing a Basic server I cannot get it to boot. So, what am I missing? Can I load CentOS on a hardware RAID 5 volume that is 3TB (usable) or am I stuck with what most Google searches say and load the OS on one disk and then after use software RAID to RAID 5 the remaining 3 disk into a /data directory? All help is appreciated. Thanks --Kenny
You can simply create two virtual disks from the single RAID-5 volume. Create one that is like 500GB for the OS volume and then create a 2nd one which uses the remainder of the space. -----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf Of Kenny Noe Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 3:02 PM To: centos at centos.org Subject: [CentOS] CentOS 6.5 install Hello, I'm a newbie so here's my question. I'm trying to install CentOS 6.5 on a HP Proliant 350e server. This server has 4x 1TB hard drives. I'd like to enable the hardware RAID 5 and stripe all 4 disk into one 3TB logical volume. Then install CentOS on the 3TB volume. However after I install I can't get the server to boot. I know about the MDOS vs GPT labeling issue. I've successfully installed on one (singular) 3TB disk on other servers. I have modified the partition tables, relabeling them to GPT, prior to completing the installs. However I've read that the Anaconda installer still tries to format as MDOS and after installing a Basic server I cannot get it to boot. So, what am I missing? Can I load CentOS on a hardware RAID 5 volume that is 3TB (usable) or am I stuck with what most Google searches say and load the OS on one disk and then after use software RAID to RAID 5 the remaining 3 disk into a /data directory? All help is appreciated. Thanks --Kenny _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS at centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Make sure that you are booting and installing the system using the UEFI bios, not the legacy bios. You'll need to check your bios setup for the setting to do this if the system supports it. The legacy bios will force the MDOS labeling scheme that will limit the boot drive to a maximum of 2TB. The UEFI bios allows the system to boot from a large GPT labelled disk (with the required UEFI partition). Erik On 26/02/14 12:01 PM, Kenny Noe wrote:> Hello, I'm a newbie so here's my question. > > I'm trying to install CentOS 6.5 on a HP Proliant 350e server. This server > has 4x 1TB hard drives. I'd like to enable the hardware RAID 5 and stripe > all 4 disk into one 3TB logical volume. Then install CentOS on the 3TB > volume. However after I install I can't get the server to boot. > > I know about the MDOS vs GPT labeling issue. I've successfully installed > on one (singular) 3TB disk on other servers. I have modified the partition > tables, relabeling them to GPT, prior to completing the installs. > > However I've read that the Anaconda installer still tries to format as MDOS > and after installing a Basic server I cannot get it to boot. > > So, what am I missing? Can I load CentOS on a hardware RAID 5 volume that > is 3TB (usable) or am I stuck with what most Google searches say and load > the OS on one disk and then after use software RAID to RAID 5 the remaining > 3 disk into a /data directory? > > All help is appreciated. > > Thanks --Kenny > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On 02/26/2014 04:02 PM, Les Mikesell wrote:> Is there a way to get /home, /var, and /opt installed as directories > on that other "one big partition"? /var in particular has an odd mix > of OS and 'your' data and logs that may turn out to be big. And you > may not know ahead of time what to allocate for it as a separate mount > point.Isn't this pretty much the use case for LVM? Set up the other partition as a pv on a different volume group from the root, and have three logical volumes in it. You can resize as needed. This keeps /home and /var in separate filesystems, too, and there are advantages to that.
On 02/28/2014 08:45 AM, Les Mikesell wrote:> On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 7:28 AM, Lamar Owen <lowen at pari.edu> wrote: >> This keeps /home and /var in separate filesystems, too, and there are >> advantages to that. > 'Resize as needed' is not at all the same as sharing a pool of space.Exactly, and I would posit that that is desirable when dealing with /home and /var.> There are sometimes advantages to having things not share disk heads > or spindles, but you don't need LVM for that, and sometimes (rarely) > you might want to reinstall without reformatting /home, >The nice thing about LVM in this context is that you can take the whole non-root volume group and import it into the new machine with minimal effort. /var is a bit tedious, but /home on the other hand benefits greatly from this. And I've used a separate /home since... well, since RHL betas were named after cities. I've reinstalled without reformatting /home on my whatever-is-the-current-hardware personal machine over a hundred times since 1998, and have *kept* the *same* /home (in essence). Admittedly, I have had to move some things out of the way (.kde, and a few other configs over the years) and of course I've moved it to different drives (about two dozen at this point, not counting backups), but my /home today still contains files from 1998, when I first started doing this (you know, things like old TRS-80 disk images for the xtrs emulator that I pulled from 20-year-old-media in the 1998-2002 timeframe). While it would not be technically true that I've never reformatted /home during the install, since when moving to a new drive it is a bit easier to do the install with the existing /home partition or volume group unmounted, then edit /etc/fstab later, or even install to a scratch new drive, leaving the space for /home to later be copied over from the old media or a backup, but in essence I've gone 16 years with pretty much the same, ever-changing, /home on my personal machine.
On 02/26/2014 03:01 PM, Kenny Noe wrote:> Hello, I'm a newbie so here's my question. > > I'm trying to install CentOS 6.5 on a HP Proliant 350e server. This server > has 4x 1TB hard drives. I'd like to enable the hardware RAID 5 and stripe > all 4 disk into one 3TB logical volume. Then install CentOS on the 3TB > volume. However after I install I can't get the server to boot.How far does it get on the process? I set up an HP DL180 g5 server this week, and had it refuse to boot because I had not designated the boot volume when I set up the RAID. Once I went in and designated the boot volume, everything worked fine. If you are getting GRUB, but it doesn't get all the way through to booted, there are a lot of different places to get messed up along the way. Tell us more, and we can focus on where the your particular issue is. Ted Miller Elkhart, IN, USA> > I know about the MDOS vs GPT labeling issue. I've successfully installed > on one (singular) 3TB disk on other servers. I have modified the partition > tables, relabeling them to GPT, prior to completing the installs. > > However I've read that the Anaconda installer still tries to format as MDOS > and after installing a Basic server I cannot get it to boot. > > So, what am I missing? Can I load CentOS on a hardware RAID 5 volume that > is 3TB (usable) or am I stuck with what most Google searches say and load > the OS on one disk and then after use software RAID to RAID 5 the remaining > 3 disk into a /data directory? > > All help is appreciated. > > Thanks --Kenny > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >