# issues with ProLiant N40 and RAID - FreeBSD 9



## urza (Feb 15, 2012)

Hi,
I have encountered serious issues when I try to install FreeBSD 9 on HP ProLiant N40 with the embedded RAID activated. When trying to boot both x86 and amd64 images the system reboots without say anything. Please note that this issue doesn't come up when I set up the system with AHCI instead of RAID: freebsd FreeBSD just works like a charm.

I do not have this present issue with other *nix system (say, several linux flavours).

Somewhere I have read on 'hard disk protection' problem: is this the case?

Thank you!


----------



## kpa (Feb 15, 2012)

What type of RAID is this "embedded RAID", is it a true hardware RAID? If it's not you're better off using ACHI and looking into ZFS or GEOM(4) based (software) RAID solutions.


----------



## urza (Feb 15, 2012)

*Y*es, it is a true hardware RAID.


----------



## kpa (Feb 16, 2012)

Please post the brand and model of the RAID controller, also the lscpi entry from Linux when the controller is in RAID mode.


----------



## urza (Feb 16, 2012)

*lspci* says 'Ati Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 SATA Controller'.

I have tried also with FreeBSD 7.1 and still no joy.


----------



## kpa (Feb 16, 2012)

That's very likely not a real hardware RAID but a "pseudo RAID" controller that needs a software driver in the operating system to do the actual work of redundancy and integrity checking.


The on-disk metadata of that controller might be supported by graid(8), try this with the 9.0 install disk and see if the boot proceeds any further:


```
Select 2) at the loader prompt and type:
load geom_raid<enter>
boot<enter>
```


----------



## urza (Feb 16, 2012)

No, it doesn't even let me enter the boot menu: it reboots the machine just after looking up /BOOT/LOADER. I try to press 2 but nothing!


----------



## jem (Feb 16, 2012)

That's the ProLiant MicroServer.  I have one.  It's not a dedicated RAID controller card, it's just BIOS-based software RAID.

I'd suggest disabling and using ZFS on the drives.


----------



## kpa (Feb 17, 2012)

Seconded, you won't gain anything by using the pseudo RAID. FreeBSD's own software RAID solutions, ZFS and gmirror(8) (assuming RAID 1 is what you're after) are superior in many ways.


----------



## urza (Feb 17, 2012)

Ok, you convinced me. I will switch on AHCI and use FreeBSD's own RAID. By the way, neither Linux actually sees the RAID but two single disks. Thank you very much, I am anxious to start!


----------



## urza (Feb 17, 2012)

I was wondering whether ZFS RAID-Z suits better for me. How do you advise me? What is the most stable FreeBSD software RAID? I plan to host a bunch of virtualized minimal linux and to export them ZFS filesystem, using VirtualBox's filesystem facility.

Thank you again.


----------



## gkontos (Feb 17, 2012)

ZFS is not just another software RAID implementation.

I would suggest that you have a look a the documentation first:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/filesystems-zfs.html

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23824_01/html/821-1448/zfsover-1.html#scrolltoc


----------



## kpa (Feb 17, 2012)

With ZFS it's adviseable to separate the operating system from the data, a recommendation by Sun for Solaris that applies to FreeBSD as well. This means you should make two separate pools in an all ZFS setup, one for OS and another for the data. Or use gmirror(8) for the operating system and a ZFS pool for data.


----------



## jem (Feb 17, 2012)

urza said:
			
		

> Ok, you convinced me. I will switch on AHCI and use FreeBSD's own RAID. By the way, neither Linux actually sees the raid but two single disks. Thank you very much, I am anxious to start!



You might find my wiki page on building my own MicroServer NAS informative:

http://www.b0rken.org/wiki/index.php/HP_MicroServer_FreeBSD_NAS_build

It's a little out of date, being based on FreeBSD 8.2.  I'll try to update it for a FreeBSD 9.0 build.


----------



## urza (Feb 17, 2012)

Thank you all for your replies, very helpful. I have already planned to keep the system separated from the data: I have installed FreeBSD on one physical disk and I want to set up a two-disk RAID only for the data. My question is: could I have the main system running on UFS and the two-RAD disk setup running on ZFS?


----------



## jem (Feb 17, 2012)

Yes, you can.  That would be quite an easy setup.

Just install FreeBSD the usual way on ada0, then afterwards make your mirrored pool from ada1 and ada2.


----------

