I'm trying to install a new server which has a hardware RAID controller. All I need is a simple working RAID5 setup and this is my first time doing it in FreeBSD. I noticed that /sbin/sysinstall does not support configuring the drives through (g)vinum* therefore, I have to normally partition the "slices" then configure vinum, is that the correct or proper way of having RAID5 configured on the server? I would really appreciate any feedback, links or hints on this as all the documentation I have gone through looks very old, some are from 1997, 2001 and 2003 and some are talking about FreeBSD 4.4.. * http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/vinum/index.html Thanks in advance -- Sincerely, Yousef Raffah Senior Systems Administrator -- Aren't you using Firefox? Get it at http://www.getfirefox.com -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/attachments/20060507/b641bf3d/attachment.pgp
Yousef Raffah <yraffah@savola.com> writes:> I'm trying to install a new server which has a hardware RAID controller.Hardware RAID controllers such as amr(4) or twe(4) (I've seen LSI MegaRAID SCSI 320-1 and 3Ware Escalade 8006-2 LP, the latter is a 2-port SATA controller and can't do RAID5 for lack of ports) stuff usually presents a whole logical unit as a single SCSI drive (/dev/da0 for the first disk array, /dev/da1 for the second and so on), so you shouldn't need vinum, geom or anything like that - just the driver would suffice. If you need vinum or geom to implement a RAID then chances are your so-called "hardware RAID" is actually fake (fakeraid) and really software RAID. Adaptec "HostRAID" and the RAID in intel's ICH x-R chipsets falls into this fakeraid category. The vendors don't like to present it as software RAID, so that particular bit is extremely hard to find :-( What is the brand and model of your so-called hardware RAID? -- Matthias Andree
Yousef Raffah wrote:> The machine is a compaq server with Smart RAID controllerIs the controller recognised by FreeBSD during startup? If it's a SmartArray 5xxx then the 'ciss' driver is the one you want: ciss0: <Compaq Smart Array 5300> port ... [...] da0 at ciss0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0 da0: <COMPAQ RAID 5 VOLUME OK> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-0 device da0: 135.168MB/s transfers da0: 105008MB (215056800 512 byte sectors: 255H 32S/T 26355C) This is a real hardware RAID card, and it presents the array to the system as a regular SCSI disk (da0 above). Just define your array from the card's BIOS and make sure you are running a kernel that has 'ciss' enabled (GENERIC has it by default). /Daniel Eriksson
Yousef Raffah wrote:> Why should I define it from the card's BIOS?Because there are no utilities in FreeBSD to configure the array during runtime. Your only option is to do it from the BIOS when you boot your computer.> Is it done through the system's startup (F9)?Just boot your server and wait for the BIOS screen for the card to pop up. It will tell you what key to press to enter BIOS. I don't remember what key it is off the top of my head.> How can I have my volumes configured? Is it after the system is being > installed or during installation? Please forgive my newbie > questions :|You need to configure your arrays BEFORE you install FreeBSD. Once the arrays have been set up properly you can install FreeBSD. Because the card presents each array that you have defined as a regular disk to the system, just select the appropriate disk (most likely da0) during sysinstall to get FreeBSD to partition/slice it up for you. /Daniel Eriksson
On Sun, 2006-05-07 at 10:33 -0600, security wrote:> Daniel Eriksson wrote: > > >Yousef Raffah wrote: > > > > > >>How can I have my volumes configured? Is it after the system is being > >>installed or during installation? Please forgive my newbie > >>questions :| > >> > >> > > > >You need to configure your arrays BEFORE you install FreeBSD. Once the > >arrays have been set up properly you can install FreeBSD. Because the > >card presents each array that you have defined as a regular disk to the > >system, just select the appropriate disk (most likely da0) during > >sysinstall to get FreeBSD to partition/slice it up for you. > > > > > Try and get the SmartStart CD's (from HP). It'll make setting up lots > easier and you can load the latest code on the controllers.OK, I found out that my array has been already set up as RAID 5, which is what I'm looking for. Do you think it is time now to configure the volumes or is there something else needs to be done before that? -- Sincerely, Yousef Raffah Senior Systems Administrator -- Aren't you using Firefox? Get it at http://www.getfirefox.com -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/attachments/20060508/1da4bcd4/attachment.pgp