raid or not raid

[Jerry McAllister]

On Mon, May 28, 2007 at 12:11:24AM +0200, Gabriel Rossetti wrote:

> Jerry McAllister wrote:
> > On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 06:07:58AM -0500, illoai at gmail.com wrote:
> >
> >   
> >> On 24/05/07, kalin mintchev <kalin at el.net> wrote:
> >>     
> >>> so nobody on this list knows anything about raid?
> >>> wrong list?
> >>>
> >>>       
> >>>> hi all..
> >>>>
> >>>> i have a box in a remote hosting facility that claims that the machine 
> >>> has
> >>>       
> >>>> two discs raided in it but df and fstab show only one disc with a bunch 
> >>> of
> >>>> slices.
> >>>> under devices there is another name - ad6 - but it's not mounted 
> >>> anywhere.
> >>>       
> >>>> the one i see both in df and the fstab is ad4 with one big slice and
> >>>> different partitions....
> >>>>
> >>>> they insist there are 2 raided discs in tha machine. the os is 5.4 and i
> >>>> think at that point the raid drivers were still considered 
> >>> 'experimental'.
> >>>       
> >>>> it makes sense to me that if i don't see a second drive in the fstab 
> >>> there
> >>>> isn;t any mounting which means that there is no raid going on...
> >>>>
> >>>> is there any other way i can make sure if raid is actually on?
> >>>> would there will be any logs somewhere?
> >>>> the machine has been up for about 2 years and the dmesg is long gone...
> >>>>
> >>>> thanks.....
> >>>>
> >> Lots of people here know plenty about RAID,
> >> but you don't provide very much information.
> >>
> >> If dmesg itself returns none of the startup info,
> >> you can look in /var/log/dmesg.[today|yesterday].
> >>
> >> /usr/sbin/pciconf can tell you what controller(s)
> >> may be attached.
> >>
> >> A proper RAID will show up as a single device,
> >> just like any hard drive (but different).
> >>
> >> It does seem odd to me that a (supposed) RAID
> >> would show up as /dev/ad4.
> >>     
> >
> > A hardware raid will look like any other drive to the system.
> > If it is SATA raid, it should be adN
> > It is it SAS raid, it should be daN.
> >
> >   
> I have an SATA RAID controller (rocketraid 1640) and the drive shows up
> as daN and not adN

That may be correct.    You may need to address the raid as /dev/dann
I have not had a SATA raid to see what it did.  I just know that the
SAS raid showed up as da-something (I don't have it available to check.

////jerry

> When I tested the controller without the driver loaded the DRIVES showed
> up ad adN, I put
> drives in caps because this is what I think is happening here, the
> driver isn't loaded and/or no
> RAID devices were created, so the RAID controller's drives just show up
> as drives and the
> controller is just used as a non-RAID controller. I suspect this is why
> he sees a second disk.
> 
> Gabriel
> > Some systems allow you to address the drives as either individual
> > drives or as the raid - maybe until you have configured it or
> > something.   Anyway, on a Dell 2950 I could see both designations
> > but figured out which was the raid and used it and all was fine.
> >
> > ////jerry
> >
> >   
> >> Possibilities:
> >> Your RAID really is on /dev/ad4 and /dev/ad6 is
> >> something unexplained.
> >> Your RAID controller is unsupported in 5.x and
> >> not Doing The Right Thing but somehow still (kind
> >> of) working as a normal [S]ATA controller.
> >> Your RAID controller is unsupported in 5.x and
> >> your hosting company realised this and wired
> >> the shebang up as a normal [S]ATA controller
> >> because they couldn't get FreeBSD to install
> >> otherwise.
> >> There is a RAID controller and there are two disks
> >> connected to it, but the controller was not set up
> >> correctly.
> >> There is a RAID controller and there are two disks
> >> connected to some other controller which might lead
> >> to some interesting phone calls.
> >> Your remote hosting company put a RAID with two
> >> disks in some random machine and someone else
> >> is complaining on some other list about the inverse
> >> of your problem.
> >>
> >> -- 
> >> --
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> >   
>