Topic: RAID5 SATA Pb

[edeganay]

Hello there,

I have to install SME 7.1 on a brand new machine, with 3 SATA Disks.
Every install type I did are getting me into a deadend :
Fisrt Partition (MD1) is in RAID1 (sd[abc]1) which is fine
Second partion (MD2) is also in RAID1 (sd[abc]2) which is NOT fine for me.

This is a bit strange because, from 3 available disks, SME is supposed to setup RAID5 automatically.

Does anyone have any idea of solving this pb ?

Thank's a lot !
Edd

[spontix]

Hallo community,

i have the same problem.
Can you help us,
thanks a lot

spontix

[p-jones]

What is the make / model of the controller ? Server ? Is the controller supported ?

Have you tried installing with just one drive active then using the admin menu to bring up the other drives.

If these choices dont work them I would suggest you go to the bugtracker.

[Confucius]

Combining RAID1 (SME) with RAID5 (hardware) here ?

I suggest to install SME with the paramater "noraid" since you already run RAID5.

Harro

[spontix]

Hello

No i do not combine software raid1 and hardware raid5.

I just want software raid5, the raid function of the sata controller(on board) is disabled.

I don't think the controller is the problem, cause sme makes during installation raid1.

My Board is a Asus M2N-E nForce570 Ultra.

spontix

[Confucius]

RAID1 is a software issue. It needs 2 disks. It's the simplest form of RAID. It only does mirroring. RAID5 tho does striping and needs a minimum of 3 disks to function properly.

You have to make a choice here. Disable 1 disk (and enable later again) or install SME without software RAID and let the hardware do RAID5.

http://www.sohoconsult.ch/raid/raid1.html
http://www.sohoconsult.ch/raid/raid5.html

Harro

[spontix]

i know harro,

the problem is, i have 3 hard disks and i want software raid5. but sme installs software raid1, but all 3 disk are recognized.

Normally sme should install software raid5, but it installs software raid1.

this is the problem.

spontix

[Confucius]

The only problem is that you expect RAID5 to come as software while I just explained (with links for more info) that RAID1 is software and RAID5 is NOT.

[bpivk]

The only problem is that you expect RAID5 to come as software while I just explained (with links for more info) that RAID1 is software and RAID5 is NOT.

Wrong. http://wiki.contribs.org/SME_Server:Documentation:Administration_Manual:Chapter4#4.3._Hard_Drive_Configuration
You can setup a raid5 array on SME.

[Confucius]

Dang,

There goes my basic RAID knowledge.

Haven't seen that part yet. My apologies for putting people on the wrong foot with my outdated knowlegde.

Harro

[bpivk]

I think that this can help.
http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1303 (look for the first link in pdf that has a howto for adding add raid)

But i still don't know why sme doesn't install raid5.
Did you use new disks or do they contain any previous records?

And confucius i didn't know that raid5 exists with the help of software drivers but i was wrong too (read the manual some time ago and was amazed).    

[spontix]

hello again,

i read the manuel, thank for the link. I try it tomorrow.
I use complete new hard disks, WD 250GB WD2500YS RE 16MB from western digital.

Is it a bug or not?

spontix

[pfloor]

Check the bug tracker, namely:

http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2015

and

http://bugs.contribs.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2492

The talk there is that Raid5 on 3 disks will be depreciated because it works the disks too hard.  The default with 3 disks is now Raid1.  

I don't know exactly when the change came about (7.1 I think) but you now need 4+ disks to do raid5.

I beleive that if you still want to do this, find the 7.0 ISO and it should install 3 disks as raid5.  Then "yum update" your way to 7.1.3.  You can still get 7.0 here:

http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/releases/obsolete/7.0/iso/

[bpivk]

pfloor that's a nice trick.  
I would never think of that.

Edit: Added a note in the wiki.

[spontix]

thanks a lot, this solve the problem.

Great community, thanks

spontix