RocketRaid640L Build Problem

[darkod]

I wouldn't know about maxing the controller.

And yes, creating the zfs pool will destroy all data on the disks and any existing mdadm configuration or otherwise. But I don't think you need to do anything special in advance. Simply zfs will do its job and blow away everything on the disks.

[kazz2]

Thanks for all the help today, darkod!

[MAFoElffen]

I brought this up this morning as I was heaing out the door this morning. I just got back and see you are in other direction.

One note... you were worried above data corruption, freezes and mentioned media and the 790i... If you google that, as I remember, those were all in bed together as issues, when that chipset was first released... So you might want to ensure that you have updated your BIOS. They came out with fixes for those issues.

[kazz2]

I was referring to "silent corruption" of data that happens in many file systems. It's a big selling point for ZFS, I discovered.

I got the 790i up to date and burned in with Win7-64 and some overclocking, running benchmarks, etc. some time back. But the PC never got used much around here. Kids grow up, go to school, and move away. =)

ZFS is installed and running with two datasets so far. Super Bowl distracted me. Will finalize my dataset and shares design and have that spinning today. Then get a big chunk of data on there and start moving it around for a couple of days to be sure the drives are OK, etc. Then start migrating from SBS 2003 with the WHS and Plex as the last step.

Thanks, all!

[kazz2]

One week later and I've found that my plan to use the motherboard's SATA2 ports and zfs to make a RAIDZ array won't work. Something to do with nVidia's SATA2 ports or lackings in drivers. Regardless, my choice became make a BIOS RAID or figure out how to get the Highpoint RocketRaid 640L working.

I don't like the idea of a BIOS RAID because there's no way to monitor it or manage it. I don't believe, should a drive issue arise, it will even tell me which of the drives is having issues. So I thought I'd give the RAID adapter one more go.

Going through the tech support conversation, getting the latest driver through them, and being given easy, straightforward installation instructions, I now have the adapter installed - theoretically. The instructions made the build and had me use modprobe rr640l to load it. All seems to have gone well. I'll be connecting the drives, defining the array in the adapter's BIOS, etc. In the meantime, I'd like to automate the loading of the adapter.

According to the instructions, I can either "put it into initrd file or configure a /etc/rc.d script" to load it.

Suggestions and some appropriate instructions?

Thanks!

[darkod]

Putting it in /etc/modules seem to be the way to go.
http://askubuntu.com/questions/29967...loaded-on-boot

[kazz2]

Thanks. But I'm now a bit confused by what I see. I created the array and rebooted Ubuntu. I saw 640L on multiple lines scrolling by at boot so clearly some aspect of it is installed. Running sudo parted and issuing a print all reveals:

GNU Parted 2.3Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print all
Error: The backup GPT table is corrupt, but the primary appears OK, so that will
be used.
parted: invalid token: all
OK/Cancel? ok
Warning: Not all of the space available to /dev/sda appears to be used, you can
fix the GPT to use all of the space (an extra 11720547408 blocks) or continue
with the current setting?
Fix/Ignore? f
Model: HPT DISK_0_0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 9002GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt


Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name  Flags
 1      1049kB  3001GB  3001GB               zfs
 9      3001GB  3001GB  8389kB


(parted) print all
Model: HPT DISK_0_0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 9002GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt


Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name  Flags
 1      1049kB  3001GB  3001GB               zfs
 9      3001GB  3001GB  8389kB




Model: Seagate Expansion Desk (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 5001GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt


Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name                          Flags
 1      17.4kB  134MB   134MB                Microsoft reserved partition  msftres
 2      135MB   5001GB  5001GB  ntfs         Basic data partition          msftdata




Model: ATA WDC WD5000AAKS-0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos


Number  Start   End    Size   Type      File system  Flags
 1      1049kB  256MB  255MB  primary   ext2         boot
 2      257MB   500GB  500GB  extended
 5      257MB   500GB  500GB  logical                lvm




Model: Linux device-mapper (linear) (dm)
Disk /dev/mapper/kazz--u0a1--vg-root: 241GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: loop


Number  Start  End    Size   File system  Flags
 1      0.00B  241GB  241GB  ext4




Error: /dev/mapper/kazz--u0a1--vg-swap_1: unrecognised disk label

Clearly Ubuntu could see the new array through the newly-installed adapter immediately. I took my best guess about fixing the GPT, as you can see. And there are some zfs partitions remaining on the drives.

1) Should I assume I need to delete those partitions on the 9TB array? I believe the proper tool is parted here (manpages is currently down).

2) Should I be concerned about the last line, "Error: /dev/mapper/kazz--u0a1--vg-swap_1: unrecognised disk label"?

Thanks!

[darkod]

Wow... First, keep your LVM VG names short, look how the /dev/mapper device looks now... And many dashes in it...

I really don't know your setup. What is that ntfs disk dev/sdb doing there???

If you created new array how come it has the zfs partitions there? Did it pick them up automatically? I would say yes, you need to create new blank partition table on each disk you want to use. Then you can partition it according to your needs and take it from there...

[kazz2]

Well, let me display more of my ignorance. I'm not sure what LVM and VG are other than the former perhaps being logical volume name? I can assure you I've not assigned any names to anything other than the server, a few directories, and a couple of users.

dev/sdb is the Seagate external 5TB drive just recently added along with a USB 3.0 adapter.

Those four disks were in an array with the motherboard SATA2 ports. I deleted the zpool but I'm guessing I should have done more to wipe them clean before moving them to the add-in SATA3, RAID adapter as Ubuntu somehow found partition segments when it rebooted.

At this point all the drives are great except the 9TB RAID array. I need a method to wipe it clean and create a single partition on it for data. Again, parted?

And is the final line from parted a problem or no?

Thanks!

[kazz2]

Actually, I should kill the adapter's RAID array and let zfs pool up my drives into a RAIDZ array. Yep.