URGENT: Need help rebuilding iir RAID5 array with failed drive

[Ryan Coleman]

Derek Ragona wrote:
> At 09:38 AM 6/26/2008, Garrett Cooper wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 7:30 AM, Casey Scott <casey at phantombsd.org> 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > ----- "Derek Ragona" <derek at computinginnovations.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> At 08:49 AM 6/26/2008, Garrett Cooper wrote:
>> >> >Hello,
>> >> >       First off sorry for the cross-post. I typically don't do this
>> >> >but this is an important question, so please bear with me. I'm just
>> >> >trying to get more eyes on the subject so I can (maybe) get a reply
>> >> >quicker...
>> >> >       I'm running 8-CURRENT on my machine and it appears that one
>> >> of
>> >> >the disks in my RAID5 array has taken a nose dive (BIOS recognizes
>> >> >that it exists, but Intel Matrix Manager claims that the disk is an
>> >> >"Offline Member"). After doing some reading it appears that it's
>> >> >kaput, so I need to get a replacement disk to fix this one...
>> >> >       That aside, I need to determine how to rebuild the array in a
>> >> >Unix environment because Intel only provides instructions for how to
>> >> >use their Windows matrix manager. If anyone can point me to some
>> >> links
>> >> >or provide me with some pointers on how to correct this issue, I'd
>> >> owe
>> >> >you a lot; in fact the next time you come by Santa Cruz, CA I'll
>> >> >gladly treat you to some beers or something else you might want
>> >> :)...
>> >> >Linux solutions (if there isn't a proper one for FreeBSD) are valid,
>> >> >as long as the core data remains uncorrupted and I can do what I
>> >> need
>> >> >to from a LiveCD. I'm just scared to boot up OS and have it do some
>> >> >irrevocable operation like fsck -y and assume parity errors are ok
>> >> or
>> >> >something along those lines  (I don't remember if I set rc.conf to
>> >> >fsck -y and I know I can change that from single-user mode, but I
>> >> want
>> >> >to play things conservatively if at all possible) :\...
>> >> >       Filesystem is UFS2 with softupdates of course.
>> >> >       Point proven that I need to backup my data more often :(...
>> >> >TIA,
>> >> >-Garrett
>> >> >
>> >> >PS If replying on the questions@ list, please CC me as I'm not
>> >> >subscribed to that list.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Most of the intel RAID functions can be accessed through the BIOS
>> >> console
>> >> too.  It isn't as pretty as the GUI versions but has the same
>> >> functions.
>> >>
>> >> The drives are labeled so the RAID controller will know a drive was
>> >> replaced.  You just need to tell the controller to add it to the 
>> array
>> >> and
>> >> rebuild the array.
>> >
>> > I haven't seen an Intel card in a while, but if you see an 
>> "initialize"
>> > option, DON'T USE IT. On other cards it exists, and destroys the 
>> volume.
>> >
>> > Casey
>>
>> Sean, Casey, and Derek:
>>
>> Thanks for the replies so far.
>>
>> Yeah, I stay away from things that say "Initialize", "Delete Array",
>> etc :). Part of my concern came from the fact that I got a kernel
>> panic the last time I tried to boot into FreeBSD, but that may have
>> been because one of my disks was disconnected and the bzero attempt
>> was polling some address out of range (I was attempting to
>> troubleshoot the issue at the time).
>>
>> I'm pretty fed up with Intel's ICH9R interface too so I'm hoping
>> (crosses fingers) that I'll be able to afford an Adaptec card of some
>> flavor that's compatible with -CURRENT. For that I'll ask for advice
>> on current@ later on which card to get...
>>
>> It looks like my figuring out what to do in solving this issue will
>> only be solved by grabbing another drive and replacing the dead one.
>> Oh well, here goes for an RMA...
>>
>> TIA,
>> -Garrett
>> _____________ 
>
> If you are looking to move up, look at the 3ware RAID cards.  Not sure 
> which models work with FreeBSD, but these card do perform very well.

I'm happy with my HighPoint RocketRAIDs. HPT's site has the drives and 
they work in 7.