Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with raid

How should I set up my new HTPC's Hard Drives?

soy_renfield — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:30:07 -0800

How should I set up my new HTPC's Hard Drives? I just built an HTPC. It has room for four internal hard drives. I intend to run Windows 7 on it and cram it full of music and videos which I will access through Windows Media Center. I currently have three 1 TB hard drives installed in a RAID 5 array. My question is which one of the following three ways should I set up the system:

1 - One partition on the RAID 5 array. This partition will include the OS and the data files. Pros: It will be very easy to expand this in the future by simply adding a fourth HD to the array. Cons: Doing a full OS reinstall will be nearly impossible without buying a very big external Hard Drive for backing up the data files.

2 - Two partitions on the RAID 5 array. One smaller partition for the OS and the larger one for data. Pros: Doing a full OS reinstall will be easy. Cons: Adding space to the data partition will be difficult, possibly needing a big external HD for backup.

3 - One partition on the RAID 5 array and a smaller separate Hard Drive for the OS that will not be a part of the RAID array. Pros: Doing a full OS reinstall will be easy. Cons: There will be no more internal HD bays available, making expanding the RAID array more difficult.

I am leaning toward option three, but I need to know if I can simply replace the drives in the RAID array one by one in order to expand the storage capacity without wiping the data completely. IE: replace disk 1, allow the RAID to repopulate that drive, then replace disk 2, etc...

Am I missing something? What would you do?

RAID and backup system for Mac Pro?

shinynewnick — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:08:11 -0800

Best RAID / Backup system for HD video on a Mac Pro? I was in the process of building myself a nice little external RAID enclosure with four 1 TB drives, when I started digging into the articles and realizing that RAID isn't backup.

Now I have these 4 1 TB drives, a couple of 500 GB drives, 1 TB internal, and 640 GB system drive for my Mac Pro. So I'm looking for the best way to set up these drives in my workflow for producing HD video.

Here are my basic needs:

1. Reliable Daily backups - Daily backups of all my work. I'm still thinking of using the RAID esata box as a RAID1 setup, to prevent downtime if a drive goes down.

2. Long term backups - When a project is finished, moving the data off the working drive and onto two separate hard drives for storage. I'll buy additional 500 GB drives for this purpose as needed.

3. Speed isn't crucial, as I'm not working in uncompressed HD.

Time Machine seems to be a great built in system, and I'd like to take advantage of that. I'm also signing up for Carbonite for online backup of as much information as I can.

Any thoughts on the workflow and the best way to automate the system would be greatly appreciated.

How to make my LaCie 5big NAS better?

Señor Pantalones — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 19:55:32 -0800

LaCie 5Big NAS hacks/modifications/tricks? Just got a 5Big NAS (5TB) running RAID5. Has a built-in torrent client but it's pretty weak. Any way to hack it to run a linux distro of Transmission or Vuze, something like that? Any other tricks that make this box better (aside from "spend $1500 more and get a readyNAS")

Thanks!

How do I setup this server?

geoff. — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:01:58 -0800

I have a Dell 2900 with with space for 8 drives (Perc 5/i). Is there any kind of expandable RAID configuration I can use so I don't have to buy 8, 2TB immediately? Any ideas on what way to do this? I would like something with the equivalent of a RAID5 level protection. If I bought 8, 2TB hard drives now I'd have 14TB of usable space in RAID5. I would, however, like to expand in stages.

I'd like to allocate something like 1TB (or probably quite a bit less) for application servers (Windows 2k3, to server up my SqueezBox to network music players) and maybe a couple of development servers to test stuff out on. I can afford to lose all this, but not my data which I'd like to run in an OpenFiler type environment and for it to expand out as I need it.

If I want to run servers I'll need some sort of virtualization hyper-visor like ESXi or HyperV, latter of which I've never used. How do these deal with storage and such? How do I want them to deal with storage?

I was thinking about, perhaps, creating to RAID sets and installing ESXi to the first along with any servers I want to run ontop of that, and someone attach the second RAID set to OpenFiler and expand as I need to? Do you see what I'm trying to get at here, is there somehow I can achieve that kind of functionality?

This is all for personal use at home, so I can afford downtime.

Or, I just thought of this, is there a way that OpenFiler* can deal with this sort of expansion and I'd best run ESXi off some sort of flash drive and let it install into OpenFiler storage space?

*Choice of OpenFiler totally random I can deal with other products if they'll manage this better.

raid 0 recovery

Iax — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:31:39 -0800

Is there any way to recover the files from a RAID 0 setup in a different computer? On my old computer I had a raid 0 with two 50 gig drives, it was for gaming so I didnt really care about drive failure, i didnt have anything important on it. Now a few years later the mother board has died and now a couple of weeks later I realize I want some files from it. Im not sure what the controller was, it was a built-in one on the Soyo dragon mother board.

Is it possible to hook the drives up one at a time in an external enclosure and copy/get an image, of the two 50 gig drives and then just jam them together somehow and have the files back?

I'm looking for free solutions, because the files are not that important.

Thanks!

I need help and suggestions for small business RAID server or NAS.

Jackie_Treehorn — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:17:48 -0800

I need the best affordable solution for small business server/NAS with RAID. We are a small business with 6 computers + server attached to a workgroup network. Currently we have an old Dell PowerVault which has 4 drives in it that serves our file sharing needs.

The way the Dell is set up with RAID is that Volume C: is disk 0 and 1 in mirrored volume. It is the active system volume. Volume D: is disk 2 and 3 in mirrored volume. It is labeled as Page File. And Volume D: is made up of disk 0, 1, 2 and 3 in RAID 5. It is the shared NAS volume where all of our files are stored.

The problem that I have with our current set up is that if a drive fails, the entire NAS volume is not accessible to my users until I replace the failed drive and rebuild the RAID array. This downtime is not acceptable.

What I am asking here is what system can I buy or build that would give me my required RAID for the system and data, but still be able to limp along with a failed drive for my users until I can replace the drive and rebuild the RAID array?

Thank you,

Jackie

How to read data from RAID0 set on a different computer?

ilumos — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:05:03 -0800

Will I be able to access data from a RAID0 array on a computer other than the creator of the set? I plan to create a 1TB stripe from two 500GB drives in removable caddies on my Asus A8N-SLI Premium board, using the on-board Silicon Image 3114R RAID controller to back up a 1TB stripe on the other RAID controller on this board.

My concern is that should my computer be stolen, how would I be able to read the data off this RAID array without the original motherboard?

Would I need to connect the drives to the same motherboard model? Or just the same Silicon Image RAID chip? (perhaps on an expansion card)

If the disks in the RAID set cannot be read by any other hardware but the original, what would be the best way to back up 1TB of data across two removable drives?

Many thanks!

Does a WD MyBook have a trouble light?

mysterious1der — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:55:44 -0800

How to tell if WD MyBook mirroring has failed or drive has died? Getting ready to send my little sister off to college on another continent. She'll be taking an external hard drive with her to backup to (plus the Mozy Unlimited that she's already on, because if it's only backed up once, it's not backed up). My current thinking is to send her with one of those dual-drive WD MyBooks, probably 2TB mirrored down to 1TB.

I'm fairly distrusting of the WD software, so I'll be setting up some mirroring with SyncBack Free (at least two, if not 3 backup sets at nightly, weekly, and monthly intervals).

Main question: if she's not running the WD bundled software, will she get a visible indicator if 1 of the 2 RAID1 hard drives fails? Even a red LED will be fine. I realize there's no way Windows would recognize the failure, so the only thing I can imagine would be something built into the hardware.

Someone should just sell me this already

lundman — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:09:45 -0800

Building your own RAID, let's talk hardware options... Say the ultimate goal was to make something that looks like N5200 but ran Open Solaris for ZFS. The cheapest I have seen a N5200 is some $600. (even empty). (N7700 uses Linux, and ZFS in FUSE which I would rather not).

So assuming I need something Intel (well, or sparc I guess), 5 bays (or more), SATA.

Perhaps using something like a Q-Box 4 case, which fits 4x 5.25" space.

I should be able to fit something like a Supermicro 5 bay for the drives, which ends with 5 SATA ports. And takes up 3x 5.25" bays. The last bay in the case is half taken by the motherboard.

Now for the main board, seems the latest rage is the Intel Atom (yes?no?) and of that, the Z530 appears to be the embedded chip. Should I look at a ready made board with the chip, or a separate board, that can take the chip.

Of the Mini-ITX boards, I do not see any that directly has 5+ SATA ports:
Mini-ITX boards

So perhaps a 4-port SATA card is needed, or something drastic like using a PATA channel, with SATA adaptor.

I am guessing fanless is probably a good idea for raid? Or should I look at the MITX-6852 which appears to be aimed at embedded as well, and does come with 6-SATA ports.

Any other options to consider? I'm based in Tokyo, so I should be able to get most things, but it does make searching for information a hint harder.

That seems to land around $300, plus LCD display if I can find one to fit in a 5.25" bay.

(SATA Multiplier options are no-go.)

A question about who is liable for potential data loss when backups don't work as promised

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:44:25 -0800

I'm involved in a dispute about whose responsible for data. The basics: A RAID array in a small company's production server died. Under extreme pressure, the technician reconfigured the array, losing data in the process. The customer assured the tech the data was backed up. It wasn't. Now the customer says the tech should have checked the backup tapes before doing anything. Who is responsible for the data repair? I work with a few independent IT techs - we share projects or send work each others way when one of us has a specific expertise that a customer might need. I got called by one, in this scenario:

- Customer production server RAID array failed. It was a RAID 5 array.
- the IT tech was instructed by the customer to get the server working "by noon" - there's a lot of pressure to bring the system up. The tech asked, several times, if backups were available and where were they - the customer showed him a stack of backup tapes, said they'd been working every day, and the office manager er, backed up her boss by saying that she changed it every day.
She went on to say there were problems before but their software vendor had fixed backup problems on their last visit. The tape backup software is a common, good quality system that obviously hadn't been configured well.

- The tech broke the array (I know...), took out the bad drive, and reinstalled the OS on a new array made from the two remaining disks. Which is when I arrived on the scene. After reinstalling the backup software, we found that the tapes hadn't even been formatted. And then I found that the onboard RAID controller was hosed, because it kept killing drives. Hence the RAID array wasn't bad, but the server's mainboard was definitely bad.
So, after a fair bit of panic, a new server is ordered (with proper RAID hardware), the broken RAID set is sent off to a data recovery center for recovery (they got everything back in spite of the reformat) and the process of restoring the production server was completed successfully, and that's where I and the tech spent most of the time - getting the new server running and everyone working again.

The obvious result - the customer doesn't want to pay any of the bill now begins. His reasoning is that "The fact that he (as an IT professional), when he asked us if we had backup tapes, which we did, should have made sure there was information on the backup tapes before anything else was done".

Now, I have issue with the way this independent tech did the repair, and he knows it, but he's the customer's tech, I'm a flunky in this situation. At the time I got called in, though, the time to do anything about it was long past.

My question: is the customer justified in not paying the bill? Or did the IT tech have reason enough to believe the customer and his office manager?
I'm asking the question anonymously for liability reasons, even though I'm not liable, if that makes sense.

RAID 5 on the motherboard?

xmutex — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:52:00 -0800

RAID 5 on the (Gigabyte) motherboard in Ubuntu Server? I'm putting together a home file server that will run Ubuntu server, and I want RAID 5. It looks like Gigabyte motherboard does 6xSATA RAID 5. A PCI-e controller would cost much more than this option. Any ideas if A) RAID 5 on the motherboard is useful/viable, and B) if this particular Gigabyte motherboard would work well in Ubuntu (or CentOS)- and if not, any recommendations.

Thanks!

4-bay Firewire/USB2 RAID enclosure for OS X?

xmutex — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 11:23:08 -0800

Looking for recommendations on a 4-bay Firewire/USB2 RAID enclosure that works well with OS X. I'd also like to see recs for a eSATA equivalent, though I'm definitely leaning towards Firewire/USB2. Thanks!

Never thought that I would agree with NWA

The1andonly — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:10:43 -0800

My Apartment was (wrongly) raided by the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and explosives....About 12 agents with bulletproofs vests came into my apartment and handcuffed me and my roomate, then promptly left the place when they found out they did wrong. I feel angered, offended and disillusioned by our system. Is there anyway I can put in a complain of any sort to stop this from happening again? This is their website: http://www.atf.gov/ I live in the Washington Heights part of New York City. At about 7:30 am a loud bang happened in my door and about 12 agents proceeded to shout POLICE, OPEN THE DOOR!!!!! I looked through the peephole and saw that they were ready to just BREAK into my apartment so I opened the door....they promptly proceeded to handcuff me (at this point I am almost naked and wearing nothing but boxers), and did the same with my roomate.

They sat both of us in our living room (handcuffed, half-naked, and asked us questions about our identity and whether we knew some kind of fugitive (they showed us a picture of someone neither of us had ever seen)....after supposedly looking us up in their database we came out as clean....so they just said "thank you for your patience we did a mistake" I tried to ask for more information but they just said "we are looking for a fugitive" and thats why we did this...and then left the place....

Washington heights has been notorious for drug activities in the past but I think that this is no reason for cops not to do their homework and barge into my place. This could have easily been avoided if they would have just looked up my name and found out more about me...for they did not bother searching my apartment after finding out who I was they left......both me and my roomate feel hurt and "targetted" we are the only single, colored males living in our building, he is gay and i am straight but both of us attended ivy league schools ( and decided to move uptown to save $$$), are fully and gainfully employed and just do not fit the mold of a criminal.

The cops did not harm us in any way nor they damaged any of my things but it was very humiliating to be naked AND handcuffed in your own living room full of strangers when I have done nothing. I cannot help but think that a simple search towards my background (or my roomates) or a simple stake out outside of my apartment would have accomplished whatever they were trying to do when they came into my spot. This was absolutely NOT necessary but I dont know if we should complain, who to complain to in the first place, or if we should just "suck it up" and keep on living our lifes.........

A question about the storage/backup RAID setup I should use for a media center

schindyguy — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:17:56 -0800

I am creating a media center out of a high end Dell XPS Studio. I am using Dell hybrids as the extenders, but have a question about the storage/backup RAID setup I should use. I have already purchased ten 1TB consumer Green Caviar WD drives and two SansDigital 5 Bay eSATA enclosures. My initial plan was to use one as storage and one as backup, but I dont know what RAID to set each one up so I get good performance out of the storage one and good reliability out of the backup one.

My thought was to setup the storage as either RAID 0 or JBOD and have the backup RAID 5. Does this sound like the best idea? Would you use RAID 0 or JBOD for speed/performance of media?

My concerns:

The storage needs high performance and speed to serve the media content (high definition, mkv, divx, mp3, photos) to the media center extenders.

The backup needs to be reliable but using RAID 5 will lower the possible backup from 5TB to 4TB (which I am ok with).

What I really wish I could do is just build both of them as RAID 5 for reliability and hot swapping AND use some type of online backup solution (but I have heard this would be impossible as it takes too long to upload on something like mozy). Someone else was mentioning that there are services that you can snail mail them your hard drives to be uploaded to their online servers, but I havent found any companies like that. I would literally be able to have 8TB of storage if it would work that way :(

Please let me know your recommendations

Data Storage Appliance

Area Control — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 08:18:38 -0800

Anyone own one of these? MvixBOX. I'm wondering if it lived up to your expectations.

To RAID or not to RAID?

jluce50 — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:09:10 -0800

I just purchased two WD Caviar Black 500GB HDDs and I'm trying to figure out the best backup configuration for my home computer. Previously, I had two 160GB drives. On HDD-0 I had a partition for my OS and a partition for data. HDD-1 was used solely for backups. I used Acronis to do separate backups of the OS and data partitions. In addition to this I backup most of my data online with JungleDisk.

With the new drives I'm trying to decide if I should continue doing the same thing or set them up in a RAID 1. RAID 1 sounds great, but I keep reading that the the only reason to do RAID 1 is if you're concerned about maintaining server-level uptime. I don't care so much about uptime as protecting against HDD failure. I realize RAID 1 is not a "backup" solution, per se, but I do have online backups to cover that. Performance isn't an issue as long as I'm not losing too much speed compared to a single drive.

The advantage that I can see to my current setup is that if I get a virus or something gets corrupted I still have the backup locally and can restore from that, whereas a RAID will instantly copy the virus/corruption to the mirrored disk. I'm pretty careful so I see that as a pretty darn unlikely scenario.

Other than that it seems like RAID 1 is ideal here, but is there anything I'm failing to consider? I rarely see it recommended for home use so I want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

What's the best option for home media server/storage

willnot — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:55:32 -0800

What is the current best option for a home media server/storage? I think that hard drive prices may have finally fallen to the point where I might be able to put my DVDs on a server, but the options are overwhelming. Points of Consideration:

I'm primarily a Mac house
I have several hundred DVDs, and want to keep the full menu structure and features, so figure I need between 2 and 3 terabytes that will grow over time.
There's really just one primary TV/Stereo system I'd want to serve media too, and possibly a few computers. I suppose that could change at some point.
My house isn't hard wired for networking, so I'm looking at slow wireless or having the server located near the TV.
I don't know what the front-end is going to be yet. I was hoping a new Mac Mini would be released or maybe even a device designed to do this kind of stuff, but that may need to wait.

Drobo seems to be popular with a lot of people, but I've heard the fan is very loud. It also seems weird that you have to buy a separate piece to turn it into a NAS device.

I guess it makes sense to set up a RAID array for this, but on the other hand, a few hard drives may be cheaper/easier. I guess that would suck if one of the drives went down, but it's not like this isn't data that could be re-ripped (although that would obviously take a lot of time).

Whats the best Media Center setup for a lot of data?

schindyguy — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:14:17 -0800

Whats the best Media Center setup for a lot of data? I have music (mp3, wav); videos (divx, wmv, mp4, mkv, etc); photos that I would like to aggregate into one place: a vista media center. A major chunk of data will be in the form of unedited hd videos downloaded from a sony hdr camera. I have a home theatre with components and networking stored in a closet. I have a couple other locations (on my network) that I possibly would like to serve the content to around my house (which could be done using extenders like xboxs or dlink/netgear extenders).

I am looking for a storage capacity of around 5-8 TB

I have thought about a few setups:

1. Use a frontend computer like a dell studio hybrid (via hdmi) to connect to my main home theatre screen. Storage would come in the form of a RAID WHS (windows home server). I dont know how to configure RAID or the WHS so I would have to be very motivated to take this route (unless there is an out of the box solution). This is probably the cheapest option I think.

2. Use a frontend computer like a dell studio hybrid (via hdmi) to connect to my main home theatre screen. Storage would come in the form of a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+. The largest version they have is $2400 and will only give me 3tb of storage after RAID. I would need 2 of them.

3. Use a top of line XPS studio desktop loaded with a 2 tb without RAID (configured one for $2100) and have storage in the form of Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ (once again though I would be spending $4800 for 6tb of storage capacity).

I would also like backing up the 5-8tb of data to something (I was thinking mozy unlimited at $6/mo but thought it might be slow to transfer all that data). Are there any other options?

Which option 1, 2, 3, or something I havent thought about would be the best option?

Sata RAID controller in V64?

notsnot — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:23:14 -0800

SATA card for Vista 64? I've recently gone to the dark side and upgraded to Vista 64 (from xp64...ugh!). My current mother board has the usual bank of SATA ports, and I've been RAIDing pairs of drives (mirrored) from those ports.

The motherboard is wonky - arrays break apart, the LAN ports wake up and die randomly, and identical BIOS settings have different results. I'm replacing it.

I'd like to get a dedicated hardware RAID controller. Mostly, for scratch space - I do a lot of photoshop, and would like to make a striped array for scratch. (the other drives will be boot, and storage that will be synctoy-backed up offsite.) However, I'm having a hell of a time finding cards (mostly looking at Newegg) at a reasonable price that are specifically Vista 64 compatible. Vista has been out for what, 1.5 years, so you'd think they got around to it by now.

My other thing is price. As evidenced by my use of existing SATA drives, it should be obvious that I'm kinda tight right now.

In short, I need a four-port, SATA, hardware raid controller that is *sure* to work in Vista 64, and won't break the bank.

Tell me about current NAS manufacturers and technology?

loquacious — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 04:53:34 -0800

Tell me about Network Attached Storage ( NAS )? In particular what current manufactuers should I avoid for a typical 1 terabyte (or greater) RAID array? I'm also interested in general information and pitfalls for NAS devices and implementations. Deployment is for a mixed platform small office - about 8 seats. Platforms are XP, Vista and OS X.

I'm assuming SAMBA protocol for shares. Usage is low to medium - the office needs a data/file server for storing and reliably sharing typical office documents.

They emphatically do not need an actual server. There's no forseeable upgrade path to an in-office Exchange server or domain controller or the like - this is handled by a remote office through VPN. I could build them a PC-based solution using something like FreeNAS but that would be overkill, and I don't want to introduce a possibly flaky desktop/server into their office.

What NAS models or manufacturers are considered the most reliable? Best support? Best value?

Much thanks in advance!

Ew. This is not the type of roach I thought you'd be passing.

numinous — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:58:26 -0800

Joe's-Apartment-Filter: Advice and anecdotes on how to best roach-bomb our place? I'm moving and want to obliterate these monsters!

We’re moving! After two years of terrible management, university take-over, neighbors predisposed to frat parties, and a slew of other issues, I have finally reached the end of my lease. Praise be! Very recently, I’ve discovered yet another reason why this move is so opportune: roaches. I’ve had the good fortune to have never before lived in a place with roaches. So, when I tell you that one recently crawled over my foot while I was in the bathroom (shudder), you’ll understand that I'm absolutely horrified. Horrified and disgusted and just EW YUCK WTF GROSS GET THE HELL OUTTA MY HOUSE OMG.

As I’m so totally new to this (horrifying) game, I don’t know where to start when it comes to extermination and prevention. I’ve already bought roach traps, and set them up in various places, and have already reduced the number of roaches encountered to maybe one every two weeks. BUT! I really, really, really, really, reaaaaaaaaaaally don’t want to transport any of these beast during the move and inadvertently introduce them into our shiny new abode.

Based on advice culled from previous AskMe’s (one, two), I’ve decided that roach bombing our apartment is our best bet for complete roach annihilation. I’m inclined to go with the Raid Fogger, as it’s widely available and not too pricey. I have already purchased a big box of Borax, and have sprinkled it in various spots throughout our current apartment. But this is not enough to soothe my mind and quell my fears that they are still lingering just behind the bookcase, or in the couch, or wherever. I want not to live in fear. I want peace of mind. But most of all, I want to kill with extreme prejudice. So here’s the part where you offer all of your anecdotes and sagely advice!

Do these bombs/foggers actually work?

If I use these foggers, do I need to activate one in each room of our apartment?

How toxic is this stuff? Is it dangerous to humans? (e.g. if there is residue left from it, and it gets on my hands and I rub my eye or pick my teeth, is there a potential for harm?)

What stuff should I move before initiating the fogging mechanism? (Flatware? Kitchen utensils? Sealed food? Electronic equipment? Specific textiles?)

Will food left in the fridge be safe for consumption after the fogging?

How long should we wait after activation to return into the apartment? (Raid suggests 3 hours, but that seems rather short. Is it?)

Is there anything that I've overlooked? If so, please feel free to supply me with that advice, too. Thank you (seriously).

Software RAID Dies: Which disk is dead?

SlyBevel — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:06:22 -0800

A disk in your Server2003 software RAID fails: How do you know which physical disk to pull? I'm adding another RAID5 array to my server, and I'm thinking ahead about disaster management.

The whole point of having a RAID is that if a disk fails, I pop in a new one, the RAID gets rebuilt, and it's no big deal. But which disk to remove?

If they're all identical, and they're all on a PCI SATA card, then you can't just pop into the BIOS and see which port has a dead drive, because the BIOS won't be aware of the SATA card.

And the BIOS probably wouldn't be aware of a partial failure anyway. If the drive registers on the port but doesn't handle data anymore, the BIOS won't know.

Is this something that should be thought of as the drives are added to the system. Maybe add each drive one at a time and mark each with its ID as reported by the Disk Management snap in? (There doesn't seem to actually be an ID for each drive here, other than the label, ie: Disc 0, Disc 1, CD-ROM 0).

New SCSI card is hiding the old SCSI card-thus hiding the RAIDed system drives. Help!

bartleby — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:31:42 -0800

RAID HBA help sought: Server has its internal drives RAID'ed by an internal RAID card. I am trying to add another SCSI HBA card so I can hook up a nifty external SCSI-to-SATA RAID DAS tower. Problem is, however I install the new HBA, it "hides" the existing internal RAID card, meaning that the server doesn't find its own internal drives and can't boot. What to do? Very technical question, and I'm posting it elsewhere, but I often get my best andswer from MeFi.

I have a few ideas, but unfortunately this is a production machine with no failover/parallel device; so taking it down to experiment is a problem. (I also don't want to end up rebuilding the internal RAID.) Hoping to get some ideas to eliminate trials/errors.

IBM Xseries tower server, with an Adaptec/IBM serveRAID 6i handing the RAIDing of its internal drives.

Trying to add a PCI-to-SCSI HBA made by LSI, the 22320-R, to use ONLY as a pass-through to get a SCSI hookup outside the server itself to an external SCSI-to-SATA tower that has its own RAID controller. All I need the LSI card to do is get me an external SCSI port.

Problem is, when installed in any of the PCI slots, the new LSI card takes over and is the only visible SCSI controller; it's somehow taking priority or disabling the internal SCSI RAID controller that handles the internal system and data drives.

Tried already:
1) Disable boot in the LSI card's BIOS, for one or both channels;
still doesn't see any other controllers or drives - "no system disk"
2) SCSI adapters will come up in order of their ID;
making the internal ID 0 and the external ID 1 does nothing niether does doing it the other way.
3) SCSI adapters will come up in order of their ID;
I've tried it in every PCI slot on the mobo; not only does that not fix it, but it never reports being in the slot it's actually in - put it in slot 5, it says it's in 4; put in 2 and it says it's in #3.
4) tried it in dual-channel, single-channel A, and single-channel B; all behave the same.
5) tried swapping slots with the internal card (slot#4) and mixing and matching various slot permutations: same behavior every time.

Remove the LSI card, and everything behaves as it should.
Insert the LSI card anywhere, and it obscures any other RAID controllers, regardless if I've disabled booting in the LSI

Am I missing something, or do I just have a bad card?

What's a good external, roughly 1TB usable storage device that does its own RAID-1?

adipocere — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:18:41 -0800

What's a good external, roughly 1TB usable storage device that does its own RAID-1? Given the deep bashing I noted for the MyBook (and specifically the Western Digitals within), I was wondering if anyone had a recommended, similar external drive with RAID-1 capabilities, in the same price range. Is the LaCie 2big worth a damn? Are there others on the market? Or is the MyBook as good as it gets?

I'm looking for:
* Hardware RAID-1
* USB 2.0 connection (Firewire would be okay, eSATA would not)
* 1 Terabyte usable space post-RAID
* Can be formatted for NTFS

Let's eliminate early on the "thinking outside of the box" suggestions that do not fit:
* Two SATA disks and a special card doing RAID-1, inside a big ole case (that's the "solution" I tried and did not like)
* Amazon's storage service
* Pico-ITX and your favorite distro of Linux encased in a project box doing software RAID
* NAS
* Two disks and software RAID from Windows
* The Drobo

Yes, I am aware that RAID is for availability. Yes, there is a separate backup plan.

How can I mount WD Worldbook drives in Linux?

jackofsaxons — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:00:36 -0800

I have two hard drives out of a Western Digital Worldbook (WD10000D033) that both show up as a Linux RAID partition in cfdisk. How can I mount these drives to pull the data off?