Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:57:06 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "George Vanev" <vanev@unisoft-ltd.com>, "FreeBSD Questions" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: HP Embedded SATA RAID controller (FreeBSD 6.2) Message-ID: <007a01c7405e$ca65ef50$3c01a8c0@coolf89ea26645> References: <000901c73fb4$200bb5d0$0200000a@Vanev>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
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 ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Vanev" <vanev@unisoft-ltd.com> To: "FreeBSD Questions" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 4:35 AM Subject: HP Embedded SATA RAID controller (FreeBSD 6.2) > I have HP ProLiantML 110 G3 server. > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?007a01c7405e$ca65ef50$3c01a8c0>