Re: Converting from ata-raid to gmirror



On 3/18/07, Toomas Aas <toomas.aas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On January 30th, I wrote:

> I'm currently running FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE (amd64) on a system based on
> Intel SE7230NH1-E motherboard, which has Intel ICH7R integrated
> softraid. The machine has two 500 GB drives which are configured as
> RAID1 in BIOS. Unfortunately, this setup seems to have some stability
> issues which I can't figure out how to solve. Specifically, when the
> storage subsystem is put under heavy load (such as doing nightly
> backups) the kernel starts spitting out horrible error messages such as:
>
> FAILURE - out of memory in ata_raid_init_request
> g_vfs_done():ar0s1f[WRITE(offset=8091172864, length=16384)]error = 5
> FAIg_vfs_done():ar0LURE - out of memsory in ata_raid_1init_reqfu[eWsRItTE(o
> ffset=8091F1A8I9LU2R4E8 ,- oleuntg tohf= 16m3e8m4o)ry]e rirno ra t=a 5
> _raid_init_requestg
> vfs_done():ar0s1f[WRITE(offsFAeItL=UR8E0 9-1 2o05u6t3 2o,f
> lmeengmtoh=ry1 6i3n8 4a)t]ae_rrraoird _=in i5t
>
> If it looks like garbage, then yes, this is how it appears in
> /var/log/messages. I'm seriously afraid that similar corruption is
> sneaking into important user files.
>
> Only thing I can think of is converting this setup from BIOS-based RAID
> to gmirror. This would involve, I think, modifying /etc/fstab so that it
> references ad4 instead of ar0, then permanently breaking the mirror in
> BIOS, booting up the system with single disk and then basically
> following the gmirror chapter in the handbook. Correct?
>
> I'm also a little uncertain about "permanently breaking the mirror"
> part. I've read all the motherboard and LSI docs I can find and this
> topic isn't covered anywhere.

Well, finally I could summon up enough courage to perform this procedure
on a production server (such as it is). To break the mirror, I just went
to motherboard BIOS (not the BIOS-based RAID utility) and changed the
'Configure SATA as' setting from 'RAID' to 'IDE'. Generally everything
seems to have gone OK. The system now runs from /dev/mirror/gm0, which
consists of ad4 and ad6. However, the kernel still sees the old ar0
array and complains that it's broken. Do I care, or should I just remove
'device ataraid' from kernel configuration?

kernel: ar0: WARNING - mirror protection lost. RAID1 array in DEGRADED mode
kernel: ar0: 476772MB <LSILogic v3 MegaRAID RAID1> status: DEGRADED
kernel: ar0: disk0 READY (master) using ad4 at ata2-master
kernel: ar0: disk1 DOWN no device found for this subdisk

--
Toomas
_______________________________________________
freebsd-questions@xxxxxxxxxxx mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxx"


I'm just getting into this myself as well, but from previous people
who've helped me, I've come to understand that most motherboard 'raid'
controllers are not tru hardware raid, just a fancy wrapper around
software raid, and they do pretty much exactly the same thing as
gmirror - write a special metadata tag near the end of the disk with
the info on the mirror. This is what ataraid sees that causes it to
find 'ar0' - delete that metadata from the disk, and ar0 will go away.
Possibly there is an extra slice with a couple of blocks at the end
of the disk? That's about the extent of my knowledge...

Steve
_______________________________________________
freebsd-questions@xxxxxxxxxxx mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxx"



Relevant Pages

  • Re: Converting from ata-raid to gmirror
    ... This would involve, I think, modifying /etc/fstab so that it references ad4 instead of ar0, then permanently breaking the mirror in BIOS, booting up the system with single disk and then basically following the gmirror chapter in the handbook. ... I've read all the motherboard and LSI docs I can find and this topic isn't covered anywhere. ... the kernel still sees the old ar0 array and complains that it's broken. ...
    (freebsd-questions)
  • Re: AMD and 2003 SP1
    ... Those onboard the motherboard RAID thingies are a bit odd I ... >mirrored drives was no longer part of the mirrored set. ... >>> onboard raid to mirror the system drives. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.general)
  • Re: Disk Mirroring (RAID Level 1) XP Pro
    ... setup a RAID Level 1 so that I have one disk mirroring the other. ... I am running Windows XP Pro SP2. ... loads normally but when I switch both drives to dynamic and then go to add mirror, the add mirror is grayed out. ... If you have RAID on the motherboard, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Possible Onbaord RAID Controller Failure
    ... added to motherboards, are "soft" RAID devices. ... With the RAID drives, I'd probably ... So please post what kind of motherboard this is, ... controller is a PDC 20378 controller. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: BEST PC for Video Editing???
    ... You can always add a RAID ... A common slot type for years, was PCI. ... chipset on the motherboard), or can be added by plug-in card. ...
    (rec.video.desktop)