onboard not software raid0

pbrianf17 · Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:33 pm Post subject: onboard not software raid0

every fourm i see is about software raid (complicated). nice thing abot me is i got an onboard raid controller. so here is my problem i set up the array raid0 in my bios but when i do fdisk /dev/sda1 in gentoo shows 120gig partion not 240gig. its wierd because like in partition magic its 240gig. i shouldnt have to set software raid up because the bios splits the data for me.

someone out there knows what i am talking about so please give me some advice.

thanks guys,
brian

Mod Edit: Uncaps the title, nobody likes it when you SHOUT - tomk

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:54 pm Post subject:

pbrianf17,

You are talking about a hardware raid chip on your motherboard.
It will need a kernel driver to make use of it.

Please post the output of lspci (emerge pciutils) so we can see what the hardware device is and identify the kernel driver for you.
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NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

artificio · Apprentice Joined: 15 Sep 2004 Posts: 183

Just out of curoisity, lscpci (from the live cd) lists my RAID bus controller as
:VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA RAID Controller (rev 46),,
is there a kernel driver I could use so that I could just raid1 off of this onboard controller (I'm having a heck of a time getting software raid to work)?
Thanks.

Prospero · Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2004 10:24 pm Post subject:

Is the RAID controller built into your motherboard? If that's the case you have no choice but to use Software RAID, iirc

artificio · Apprentice Joined: 15 Sep 2004 Posts: 183

To the best of my knowledge it is... I guess I'll have to figure out how to get software raid running...

pbrianf17 · Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:15 am Post subject:

i have intel 82801ER sata raid controller onboard. u should not have to set up software raid but with my raid array it doesnt show the drives togethor
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

riprjak · Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 3:11 am Post subject:

robet · Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 4:53 am Post subject:

That's the sad story - the majority of 'hardware' RAID controllers are software dependent. It's a crazy world huh?
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richard.scott · Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 1:17 pm Post subject:

Take a look here for possible support for your raid hardware:

http://tienstra4.flatnet.tudelft.nl/~gerte/gen2dmraid/

There is some support for some chipsets, but don't hold your breath.
I don't know how stable it all is, but I'm guessing as it's not even in the Gentoo testing tree its pretty unstable....you have been warned!

I have recently got a Mobo with VT6420 SATA RAID and I'm currently trying to get winblowz to run, but at present it just hangs about 30seconds after boot up. :roll:

Once I've had enough of that I'm putting Gentoo on it

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 1:33 pm Post subject:

richard.scott,

dmraid is a driver for BIOS provided software raid chips found on some motherboards. The only reason for using dmraid over the kernel software raid options is that it provides compatibility with Windoes, so allows raid to be used with a dual boot box.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

richard.scott · Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 2:13 pm Post subject:

That is correct, it is a driver for BIOS provided raid chips. Which is the hole point of this thread....onboard not software raid0

Anyhow, I think that any chipset raid is better than software raid any day, even with the need for a driver? Come to think of it, even if someone had a 3rd party PCI SATA Raid card, like 3ware or adaptect, they'd still need to install a driver into the kernel to talk to it correctly.

Software raid is a pain in the butt when it comes to swapping out a dead disk. At least with onbard raid you have to just unplug your disk and plug in a new one, the bios then handles the replication of data does it not?

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 2:38 pm Post subject:

richard.scott,

I think you misunderstood my point. BIOS provided software raid is still software raid. The difference is that the software is provided in the BIOS instaed of the kernel. Performace wise, there is nothing to choose between them. The CPU is still doing the hard work.

The alternative is hardware raid, where the CDP sets up the usual DMA 'disk' transfers and the raid hardware does the rest. A raid card often does software raid too but it provides its own CPU.

Onboard raid is rarely hardware raid.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.