Hardware Raid on Intel DG965OT Motherboard

[Alexander Anderson]

Tue, Apr 03, 2007 at 05:22:22 PM, Ivan Carey wrote:
> Is there hardware support for this Motherboard Intel DG965OT Motherboard 
> in FreeBSD 6.2 I have read the Hardware notes but am unable to determine 
> if FreeBSD 6.2 is compatible with Intel DG965OT Motherboard and the on 
> board Martix Storage Technology
> I would like to setup a Raid 1
> 
> http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/DG965OT/index.htm 
> <http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/DG965OT/index.htm>
> 
> Also are the any concise instruction on how to setup hardware raid 1? I 
> have searched the net

I have Intel D975XBX2 with two on-board SATA RAID controllers: one is Intel
Matrix and the other is Marvell storage. I have FreeBSD 6.2 with RAID-5
using Intel Matrix Storage. It seems to work fine.

When you set it up, you first have to create a RAID array. When your
machine boots, right after (or before?) you see the screen that takes you
to the BIOS configuration, you'll be prompted to press Ctrl-I (IIRC) and
you'll be taken to RAID controller configuration screen. It's really
straightforward how to create a new array.

Then, when you boot FreeBSD, you should look at dmesg output. Mine looks
like this:

ad4: 305245MB <Seagate ST3320620AS 3.AAJ> at ata2-master SATA150
ad6: 305245MB <Seagate ST3320620AS 3.AAJ> at ata3-master SATA150
ad8: 305245MB <Seagate ST3320620AS 3.AAJ> at ata4-master SATA150
ad10: 305245MB <Seagate ST3320620AS 3.AAJ> at ata5-master SATA150
ar0: 915729MB <Intel MatrixRAID RAID5 (stripe 64 KB)> status: READY
ar0: disk0 READY using ad4 at ata2-master
ar0: disk1 READY using ad8 at ata4-master
ar0: disk2 READY using ad6 at ata3-master
ar0: disk3 READY using ad10 at ata5-master

FreeBSD installer asked me what drive I wanted to install it to: ad4, ad6,
ad8, ad10, or ar0. Of course, I chose ar0.

(The second on-board RAID controller, Marvell 88SE6145, seems to be
unsupported under FreeBSD 6.2, unfortunately. It gave me quite some
trouble. But that's another topic.)