HP Embedded SATA RAID controller (FreeBSD 6.2)
George Vanev
I am trying to install FreeBSD 6.2.
But it doesn't seem to recognise the RAID controller.
I don't know what exactly is the controller.
In the hp site I didn't find anything usefull,
except that this is "HP embedded SATA RAID controller"
Not much, uh?!
Any one could help?!
Regards
--
George Vanev
appl...@inbox.ru
It's Adaptec, probably AHA-3985 - there is an appropriate string in the
driver.
Ted Mittelstaedt
Hi George!
Common problem. The issue isn't that the FreeBSD driver cannot talk
to the SATA controller. It can do that just fine.
The problem is that HP is using a modified metadata format on the
disk drives.
What you need to do is go into the Proliant BIOS and DISABLE
the SATA raid. This of course means any raid arrays, mirrored or
otherwise, that you have created, cannot be used from BIOS. Just
leave the BIOS settings so that the SATA controller is enabled, but
the RAID on the SATA controller isn't.
Then boot FreeBSD 6.2. It will see 2 disk drives. (or more or however
many you got)
Now, if you want a raid mirror here is what you do. Load a scratch
install of FreeBSD 6.2 on the first disk. Run atacontrol to create a
mirror on both disks. This writes out a metadata format that FreeBSD's
disk driver understands. This will trash your freebsd install of course.
No problem. Reboot from the installation CD and now you will see
the 2 disks, plus ar0 (the mirror) Install to that and your all set.
Basically the only difference between doing it HP's way by creating
the RAID from HP BIOS and doing it the FreeBSD way is that
the HP BIOS is unaware of the FreeBSD metadata format so you
cannot see or rebuild an array from BIOS that was created in
FreeBSD, and FreeBSD is unaware
of HP's metadata format so you cannot see or rebuild an array
from FreeBSD that was created in BIOS
As far as how the actual raid mirror works, it's exactly the same.
In fact, better, since you can rebuild a FreeBSD array from
FreeBSD and it's about 10 times faster than rebuilding it from
HP's BIOS.
Ted
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George Vanev
AHA-3985 is SCSI controller. The one I have is SATA.
Yes, I'm sure that it's Adaptec, but what is the model?!
If FreeBSD didn't recognised it during the installation
does that mean that it is incompatible with FreeBSD?
appl...@inbox.ru
> AHA-3985 is SCSI controller. The one I have is SATA.
> Yes, I'm sure that it's Adaptec, but what is the model?!
> If FreeBSD didn't recognised it during the installation
> does that mean that it is incompatible with FreeBSD?
Yes, I understand that AHA-3985 is SCSI HostRAID and that you've SATA one.
But look at the driver for your SATA RAID for Windows. You can find in
driver's files both 'SATA'/'Serial ATA' and 'SCSI' words. There is
definitely 'AHA3985' string in .sys file for Windows. Maybe it was remade
for SATA. Probably FreeBSD hasn't working driver for this SATA HostRAID
now.
Ted Mittelstaedt
the other disks that show up.
Ted Mittelstaedt
Hold on there. HP makes SCSI and SATA versions of many of their
servers, the model numbers are almost identical between them. I think
the only difference in the servers is the SCSI ones have an additional
card.
Now, before you go any further on Windows drivers you got to understand
something. Win XP came out before SATA and Microsquash never put
in the primitives to support the higher SATA speeds in XP. So in order
to get faster speed you gotta write your Windows driver to look like a
SCSI miniport driver. MS also don't certify SATA for WCHL so if you
are selling SATA raid chipsets and you want to slap their filthy WCHL
certification sticker on your product box, once more you got to write
your driver to look like a SCSI driver.
You take a very serious risk whenever you compare features of
windows drivers and FreeBSD drivers and attempt to draw conclusions
on hardware.
Ted
----- Original Message -----
From: <appl...@inbox.ru>
To: "George Vanev" <va...@unisoft-ltd.com>
Cc: <ques...@freebsd.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 12:58 AM
Subject: Re: HP Embedded SATA RAID controller (FreeBSD 6.2)
George Vanev
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <te...@toybox.placo.com>
To: "George Vanev" <va...@unisoft-ltd.com>; "FreeBSD Questions"
<freebsd-...@freebsd.org>
Just great!!!
Thanks a lot!!!
But still it will use the hardware RAID controller, right?!
It is not a software RAID, I hope.
Ted Mittelstaedt
I hate to disappoint you but the embedded SATA controller chip is
a software raid chip, whether you set it up with BIOS or with FreeBSD's
drivers. Not that this matters, however. Mirroring does not do parity
calculation and so there is no need for a hardware controller. All the
SATA chip does when the driver sees a mirror is it sets a flag in the
SATA chip that tells the chip to duplicate any writes to both disks. Reads
always happen from the primary disk.
For true SATA hardware raid you need a card like a 3ware or highpoint
card, these can do raid 5, etc.
Ted