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superdeez
n00b
Joined: 10 May 2015
Posts: 59
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 Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2020 4:44 am Post subject: Drive assignments in RAID |
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| I have an ancient Pentium 4 I am trying to make a router out of. I've gotten some FastTrack SATA RAID cards, put two identical drives in and made an array of them. The BIOS appears to see the card's array as a "drive". My question is when I partition the drive should the linux kernel just see this array as one logical drive, like /dev/sda? Or is there more I need to do? |
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NeddySeagoon
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Joined: 05 Jul 2003
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Location: 56N 3W
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| Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2020 11:49 am Post subject: |
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superdeez,
Maybe. :)
Raid controllers vary. Some are real hardware raid. You will need the right kernel driver.
Others are fakeraid. Fakeraid behaves like hardware raid up to a point. Again you need a kernel driver but fakeraid and software raid differ only in where the software is located.
For fakeraid, its in your BIOS, software raid, its in the kernel.
With two drives, you are limited to Raid0 or Raid1. There is almost nothing for a raid controller to do.
Post the output showing your raid controller.
If its a real hardware raid card, the kernel will only see the raid set. The raid controller will hide the drives.
With fakeraid or software raid, the kernel will see the raid set and the underlying drives.
_________________
Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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krinn
Watchman
Joined: 02 May 2003
Posts: 7470
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| Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2020 3:42 pm Post subject: |
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https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1007788.html
at end, you will see a method to match who is sda,sdb... with your raid array and see your raid disks, look at Howto: know what disk is attach to what kernel name. |
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superdeez
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Joined: 10 May 2015
Posts: 59
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2020 2:58 am Post subject: |
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lspci gives me this:
| Code: | 02:02.0 RAID bus controller [0104]: Promise Technology, Inc. PDC20319 (FastTrak S150 TX4) [105a:3319] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Promise Technology, Inc. FastTrak S150 TX4 4 port SATA PCI board [105a:3319]
Kernel driver in use: sata_promise
Kernel modules: sata_promise
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Additionally, ls -l /sys/block gives me:
| Code: | lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Aug 16 17:52 sda -> ../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1e.0/0000:02:02.0/ata2/host1/target1:0:0/1:0:0:0/block/sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Aug 16 17:52 sdb -> ../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1e.0/0000:02:02.0/ata4/host3/target3:0:0/3:0:0:0/block/sdb |
It would appear this is fakeraid done via the BIOS? I built the array via the card's firmware utility. Make identical partitions and set it up via mdadm?
I'm just trying to mirror the disks so that if one goes out I still have the router. Also, at some point I'll be replacing my curent mainbox and I want to get practice here so I can mirror my home directory.
If it helps, there are two SATA drives running off of this card, no other hard drives in the machine. |
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NeddySeagoon
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Joined: 05 Jul 2003
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Location: 56N 3W
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2020 11:57 am Post subject: |
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superdeez,
It looks like fakeraid as the user manual offers raid0, raid1 and raid10.
Raid levels that need parity caculations are not supported.
Use mdadm and the SATA parts on the motherboard, if there are any.
_________________
Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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superdeez
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Joined: 10 May 2015
Posts: 59
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2020 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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That card has a mode to allow the drives to be reported as standalone drives. I'm trying to use existing hardware rather than buying at the used computer store and paying for software that will be promptly overwritten.
Finally looking to replace 2000 Server as my router OS. 2k worked well when I rented and had to use a WiFi connection. Plus a USB backup of a few files meant if I had to start from scratch, I could have it back running in 4 hours or so. Gentoo takes longer than 4 hours lol. |
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NeddySeagoon
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Location: 56N 3W
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2020 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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superdeez,
Yep, it has a JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Drives) mode.
My main point was that if you don't need it because your motherboard supports SATA1 (or better) don't use it.
It looks like its a PCI card, not PCIe, so your motherboard SATA ports will be faster than a card in a PCI slot.
Even one SATA drive can max out a whole 33MHz PCI bus.
PCI buses came in two speeds, 33MHz and 66MHz. They all uset the same parts but it was difficult to get 66MHz operation on a bus.
Devices on the motherboard often ran at 66MHz as they did not need to meet the PCI bus specification.
Even better, later PCI based systems used PCI as a point to point interconnect system. That's a bus with only two devices on it.
So your on board PCI devices may operate at 66MHz and have a whole bus to themselves.
_________________
Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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superdeez
n00b
Joined: 10 May 2015
Posts: 59
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2020 4:40 pm Post subject: |
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| No native SATA ports, unfortunately. It's not optimal, but I suspect it will be plenty fast for just routing packets. This was a free computer plus the cost of RAM and two hard drives |
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NeddySeagoon
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Joined: 05 Jul 2003
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Location: 56N 3W
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| Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2020 5:45 pm Post subject: |
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superdeez,
Go for it.
_________________
Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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superdeez
n00b
Joined: 10 May 2015
Posts: 59
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| Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2020 3:45 am Post subject: |
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I'll miss my little distractions though. When I do my daily logins to check on the router, I have a Dilbert comic-a-day program and I usually play a round of solitaire and/or pinball. If I win at solitaire, I know tomorrow's going to be a good day.  |
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NeddySeagoon
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Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Posts: 54300
Location: 56N 3W
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| Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2020 10:35 am Post subject: |
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superdeez,
You need to install "The notorious fortune program" and configure it to display a fortune at login.
A lot of the fortune databases have been removed from portage due to potential copyright issues but they are still on the web.
for more information.
_________________
Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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Installing Gentoo
