Topic: HELP!! I can't get SATA raid working on a Dell PowerEdge 700

[twatkins]

I have a Dell PowerEdge 700 server with a Adaptec 2610SA 6 channel SATA RAID controller and SME server 6.0.1 refuses to install because it won't detect the RAID array. Is there a driver disk or anything to get it working? I tried the latest kernel and still no dice.

The RAID controller is set up as RAID1 mirroring and 2 250GB hard drives.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[wickedImp]

Hi,

I can report having the same problem with SATA RAID. I knocked myself out for days before yanking the drives and fitting a ATA-100.

From what I read, Redhat doesn't support SATA, it being a new technology. Though I did hear that some releases for Fedora and Vector support SATA.

Also from reading lots of stuff at the time I remember someone saying about installing some extra drivers manually, though their post never went into much detail - so I left well alone.

Would love to hear the solution to this as I've currently got a couple of SATA drives under my desk doing nothing! So make sure you come back and post if you do find the solution.

Good luck

[twatkins]

Well, I guess I'm up s*** creek in a matchbox.        

The only way I could get the damn thing working is to hook the drives up to the onboard SATA and use software RAID, which is slow.


Bloody Adaptec.   Useless twats didn't even have a driver disk image for the 2610SA, only the 2410SA and 2810SA.

[sages]

Try running hdparm against the sata drives. While you can configure s/w raid on the dell with sata drives they run like a dog. I've got a dell box with sata and get ~2.5M/sec xfer rate, another dell box with ide and get ~55m/sec xfer rate.
Bummer is that dell stuffed up our order and upgraded the box to the sata drives for no extra charge. I'm either going to have to bin the sata's, get another ide controller card and a couple of ide's, or work out how to get the proper sata drivers into sme.

[Jáder]

I have a Asus MB P4P800 with SATA Controller and trying to use a Seagate 120Gb SATA drive (it´s recognized as in third IDE !) and a CDRW (on SEC channel).
When booting 6.01-01 CD to install I got:

...
ICH5-SATA IDE Controller on PCI slot ...
ICH5-SATA 100% native controller ...

[Hey... appears to recognize my SATA controller!]

hdc: [ID do CD RW]
hde: ST3120026AS - ATA Dsik Drive

[Hey... and my DISK & CDRW !!]

ide1 at 0x170 ...
ide2 at 0xefe0 ...
hde: attached ide-disk driver

and after "hde:..." it freeze and do nothing.

I´ll try later: (from forum search)
1.Verify if CDRW is as master OR slave (not cable select)
2. disable ACPI and other Power Mgmt

Any tips more?

Thanks

Jáder

[guiguid]

Hi,

First configure your BIOS in "compatible mode" for IDE devices.

next you'll can boot, but with poor perf env 3 Mb/s,

after install is finish :

read and do "KERNEL UPGRADE HOWTO for SME"

and you'll  get xxMb/s (with 40<x<70)

Have fun

[Jáder]

Hi

Thanks by your tip... I think I couldn´t boot in compatibility mode... but I´ll try.

BUT I have problems with a test server doing kernel upgrade (tried last week!). I did all steps and got a reboot after 3-4 sec when choosing that option on LILO!

I´ll try again this weekend and let you know. I do not give up easily!

Thanks!

Jáder

[guiguid]

I have sme 6.01 working on P4P800 in compatible mode sine 6 mouths .....

- in bios, select IDE compatble mode, F10 reboot
- go in bios again
- put the first drive primary master (UMDA 100)
- the second primary slave (UMDA100)
- your CD-ROM on Secondary (UDMA33 maxi)

let's boot SME
drive are now hda, hdb

- finish install

- reboot
- do KERNEL UPGRADE HOWTO with last kernel kernel-2.4.27mstslp04SMP: ie :

http://vanhees.homeip.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewsdownload

- reboot

- how fast is it ! Isn't It ?

[Jáder]

I did as indicated, just using not SMP kernel (I think I should use non SMP kernel... am I wrong?)

And now I got ONE more LINE on boot, after last one:

      hde: host protected area => 1


Of course this just happens when BIOS is in ENHANCED MODE to full support SATA!

[guiguid]

you can use a no-SMP kernel, of course.

the only difference in Compatble mode and EnHanced is the numbers of ide controlers !

As an exemple : Sata is theorical possible to have 150Mb/s, but it's on PCI bus with 32bit / 33MHz = 133Mb/s total !

ie : even if you copy form sata1 to sata2 the maximum speed is 133Mb/s !!! from cache to cache.
so if you copy file with size> cache size, the transfert rate of the harddrivelimit you to 60 Mb/s
ie : even if you have on the same ide controler 2 ATA133 drive, there isn't any performance losed ! (60x2 < 133 !!)

Conclusion :
If you have only 4 drives, there is no resons to use "enhanced ide".

bye

(I have transfert rate from hda to hdb at 56Mb/s with 2 hdd 160 Go ATA133 on intel ICH5 (P4P800), and the same with hda and hdc !)

[Jáder]

I have done a test with hdparm -tT /dev/hda and BIOS on Compatibility mode: +- 55MB/s

I´d like to have SATA enabled on BIOS because this server  will (should at least) to have another HDD (SCSI with Adaptec 160LP board) and do mirror by software.

Do you think this will affect performance ?

Thanks

Jáder

[guiguid]

if you add an other hdd on a SCSI controler, your IDE hdd will have the same perfs.

[Jáder]

I finnaly give up on SCSI board...
It´s a 64bits PCI SCSI Card (ASC-29160LP / DELL)
on a 32 bits PCI slot and with a Ultra320 SCSI HDD...

I´m not even thinking about to use that miss!

Am I loosing anything in performance by use my SATA in compatibility mode? Remember... I´m getting +- 55MB/s on time buffered disk reads and 914MB/s on timing buffer-cache reads!

Thanks!

Jáder

PS: Now I´ll start to fight with Firebird 1.5 and NIC 3C940 onboad! but that´s a new thread  

[joelm]

I visited kernel traffic about SATA as I am looking at making a bunch of SME servers and was hoping to use SATA. There I found this link http://linux.yyz.us/sata.  This guy writes the SATA support for the kernel.

Seems like the following is the case:  2.4.27 added libata support.  This supports many more chipsets for SATA.  It also enables them as SCSI devices.

The problem as I see it is that the SME 6.01 ISO uses uni and smp 2.4.20 kernels.  As a result in the setup of a server, the kernel that is loaded is too old to be able to detect newer hardware, including SATA chipsets.

Also, it seems from this kernel list post http://www.kerneltraffic.org/kernel-traffic/kt20040918_274.html#17 that SATA BIOS RAID support is not all it is cracked up to be.

The solution seems to be this:  have a SME 6.01 ISO rebuilt using AT LEAST 2.4.27 kernels for uni and smp systems.  Who does this? I dont know as I am new to this project.  Last time I used it was back in the e-smith days.

I am aware that there are the Sleepy SME kernels available, but I cannot find the config file to know what has been enabled in it.

I hope some of this info helps.

Joel