ICH5R, ICH7R or Promise PDC20378 RAID?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Philippe Lang
>Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2006 9:39 AM
>To: Doug Poland
>Cc: freebsd-questions
>Subject: RE: ICH5R, ICH7R or Promise PDC20378 RAID?
>
>
>owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Jun 19, 2006 at 10:18:05AM +0200, Philippe Lang wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I've got two boxes that would be perfect for a small server. The
>>> motherboards are:
>>>
>>> - ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe, with ICH5R and Promise PDC20378
>>> - ASUS P5WD2, with ICH7R
>>>
>>> I intend to install FreeBSD 6.1, and I wonder which chipset you would
>>> recommend me for RAID 1? I need something rock-solid, of course...
>>>
>> I'm running -STABLE on a P4C800-E.  I've never had a problem
>> with the PDC20378.  Recently, I added two drives on the ICH5R
>> with no issues.  A little benchmarking shows the ICH5R to be a little
>> faster.
>
>Hi,
>
>I wasn't as lucky as Doug with my ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe board, both with
>the ICH5R and Promise RAID controller.
>
>1) With the Promise controller, after simulating a disk problem
>(shutdown - disk disconnection - reboot - shutdown - disk reconnection -
>reboot), I wasn't able to rebuild the array at all, either with
>"atacontrol rebuild ar0" or from the bios. I suspect a spare disk is
>necessary for a complete rebuild.
>
>2) With the ICH5R controller, installation went fine too. If I
>disconnect a disk, the system still boots, but when I plug the disk back
>(computer shut down), no boot is possible anymore. At boot, a kernel
>panic says: "softdep_setup_inomapdep". No array rebuild is possible from
>the bios, so I'm stuck.
>

You need to take the disk you unplugged to some other machine and wipe
it,
then make sure the one disk with the system left on it is in the 0
position, put
the wiped disk in the 1 position, then you should be able to boot.

Your simulating a failure when you pull the one disk, but your not
simulating
a recovery when you insert that disk back in.

Ted