# ad4 & ad6 inspite of 1 hardware RAID-1 Set. Why?



## b2bf (Mar 12, 2010)

Hi!

I'm new in FreeBSD. Actually, it was my first experience in installing FreeBSD yesterday. 
I've got an Ubuntu server for about a year, but it's quiet different.

So, the question:
- how does FreeBSD "see" 2 HDD???

I've got ST-Lab A-224 PCI Raid adapter; 2 SATA 500 Gb HDDs. I set them into MIRROR. In this case, either Windows server 2k3, or Ubuntu server, "see" only 1 "disk" (actually Raid-set). And I can understand it!

So, why there are "ad4" and "ad6" in FreeBSD? What does it mean?

Thanks a lot!


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## SirDice (Mar 12, 2010)

Both disks are detected anyway. Look for ar0, that will be the raid device.


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## DutchDaemon (Mar 12, 2010)

Something like this:


```
ad4: 152587MB <WDC WD1600JS-75NCB1 10.02E01> at ata2-master UDMA100 SATA 3Gb/s
ad8: 152587MB <WDC WD1600JS-75NCB1 10.02E01> at ata4-master UDMA100 SATA 3Gb/s
ar0: 305171MB <Intel MatrixRAID RAID0 (stripe 128 KB)> status: READY
ar0: disk0 READY using ad4 at ata2-master
ar0: disk1 READY using ad8 at ata4-master
```


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## b2bf (Mar 13, 2010)

There were only ad4 and ad6... Do I need to somehow preload raid-driver?

Today I made some experiments. 
I've disconnected one of HDDs and started the system.
Then I've done it to the other one.
And FreeBSD started every time... %)

So, it looks like mirroring works fine...
How can I check it from OS?


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## DutchDaemon (Mar 13, 2010)

`kldstat -v | grep atar` should give you 'ataraid', put there by either


```
device          ataraid
```

in the kernel, or by ataraid_load="YES" in /boot/loader.conf.

Then again, this should have made it show up as device ar0(s1..) in `dmesg` (or in `ls /dev/ar0*`).


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## b2bf (Mar 14, 2010)

kldstat says "92 ataraid"
loader.conf is empty
dmesg has:


```
atapci0: <SiI 3114 SATA150 controller> port 0x9000-0x9007,0x9400-0x9403,0x9800-0x9807,0x9c00-0x9c03,0xa000-0xa00f mem 0xe7000000-0xe70003ff irq 20 at device 1.0 on pci2
atapci0: [ITHREAD]
ata2: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0
ata2: [ITHREAD]
ata3: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0
ata3: [ITHREAD]
ata4: <ATA channel 2> on atapci0
ata4: [ITHREAD]
ata5: <ATA channel 3> on atapci0
ata5: [ITHREAD]
...
atapci1: <Intel ICH4 UDMA100 controller> port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0xf000-0xf00f at device 31.1 on pci0
ata0: <ATA channel 0> on atapci1
ata0: [ITHREAD]
ata1: <ATA channel 1> on atapci1
ata1: [ITHREAD]
...
acd0: CDRW <NEC NR-7700A/1.05> at ata1-master PIO4
ad4: 476940MB <Seagate ST3500418AS CC38> at ata2-master SATA150
ad6: 476940MB <Seagate ST3500418AS CC38> at ata3-master SATA150
...
GEOM: ad4s1: geometry does not match label (255h,63s != 16h,63s).
...
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ad4s1a
rl0: link state changed to UP
ubuntu# ad4: 476940MB <Seagate ST3500418AS CC38> at ata2-master SATA150
Seagate: No such file or directory.
ubuntu# ad6: 476940MB <Seagate ST3500418AS CC38> at ata3-master SATA150
Seagate: No such file or directory.
```

Does it make sense? Does it mean I should reinstall the system?


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## DutchDaemon (Mar 14, 2010)

Maybe you have to set something in your BIOS or RAID config utility (if any) to make the device show up.


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## b2bf (Mar 16, 2010)

While googling, I figured out, that SiI 3114 is SOFT-RAID PCI card. So, I think I suppose to create a software RAID by the OS.


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