HP DL 120 G6 with Smart Array B110i SATA RAID Controller won't accept RAID 1 config

[ganaiwali]

A very wierd problem with HP DL 120 G6  with Smart Array B110i SATA RAID Controller  , powered on the machine and pressed F10 to get into RBSU and changed Hard Disk configuration to use RAID under advanced settings , after than used ORCA utility to configure 2 * 250G HDD's on RAID 1 , so technically when you try to install OS now and try to do the partitioning,  it  should show just disk 1 that is 250 G since we used raid 1 for fault tollerance , but instead I see 2 drives and centos gives me the choice to use either  of them , so i went ahead with the installation and  when checked with the fdisk output , I see 2 * 250 G disk in the output ... I am puzzeled what's wrong ...

what's missing here ? please help

[Jimmy Vance]

The RAID function of the embedded B110i SATA controller is controlled by a driver. Without the driver all operating systems will see the drives as 2 individual disks. The driver is only available for Windows, RHEL, and SLES.

[Matti_Kurkela]

You did not install the Smart Array B110i drivers.

The B110i controller is different from all other SmartArray controllers: it is not a true hardware RAID.

The RAID is implemented at the BIOS/driver level. If you use HP's B110i drivers, the disk format will be compatible with the other SmartArray controllers, so that you can later move the disks to a hardware-based SmartArray controller and have your data intact.

Apparently HP provides B110i drivers only for the enterprise versions of RedHat and SuSE (RHEL and SLES): they are available at http://www.hp.com/go/sataraid.

The hardware of a B110i is apparently the AHCI-compliant SATA implementation of the server's Intel chipset. As Linux has a generic AHCI driver included by default, it can drive the B110i as a regular SATA controller just fine.

As far as I can see, the only advantages to using HP's B110i drivers instead of the generic Linux AHCI driver and Linux software RAID are:

• Seamless upgradeability to hardware-based SmartArray models
• The ability to configure the RAID set using ORCA.

The disadvantages of the B110i driver set:

• You're limited to the distributions and kernel versions supported by the latest available B110i driver package (The driver is binary-only: you cannot compile it yourself for errata kernels!). This can also prevent you from installing a kernel security fix until HP updates the driver package to cover the fixed kernel version.
• Although I expect HP has tested the B110i drivers extensively, the Linux AHCI driver and software RAID implementation are likely to have a longer track record and a wider user base.

It might be possible to install HP's RHEL drivers to CentOS by editing /etc/redhat-release to say "RedHat Enterprise Linux" instead of "CentOS Linux", but you'll do so at your own risk.

[ganaiwali]

Hey thanks for the quick reply , really appreciate you guys but I am wondering

If I try installing hpahcisr-1.2.4-14.rhel5.i686.rpm from http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=3958194&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=3958193&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=4004#29324   

which i guess is the driver , and reboot the system and then use ORCA to configure 2 disks to use RAID 1 and then install the OS all over again , will defeat the purpose of reflecting 2 disk in riad 1 as a single disk because re-installing OS will wipe the driver off if I am correct ? unless there is some other way of doing it .

and the url mentioned in http://www.hp.com/go/sataraid. as aksing to buy it online ? do we have to pay for it ?

[Jimmy Vance]

You don't need to purchase the advanced license, unless you require the additional features it provides.

When I first read your post, I saw CentOS, but thought Ubuntu. The RHEL drivers will work for CentOS

1. configure the hardware, setup the RAID

2. download the correct dd driver image for your distribution (put it on a USB disk key)

3. boot your distro, at the boot prompt enter "linux dd"

Once the installation is complete follow the rest of the instructions listed with the driver download. As there are some additions steps listed fro RHEL5

RHEL 5 x86_64 boot driver image

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=3984621&prodNameId=3984622&swEnvOID=4004&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-0bb4f5a17bd64f299a4db411a0

RHEL5 x86 boor driver driver image

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=3984621&prodNameId=3984622&swEnvOID=4006&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-558146f6f42643b5b69443e593

[ganaiwali]

Tried the above instructions , didn't work since the OS is already installed . There was no

/tmp/ramfs/DD-0 /mnt/sysimage/tmp nor /mnt/sysimage

I am guessing I need to boot from CD into rescue mode ? ro maybe install OS all over in order to do

• cp -a /tmp/ramfs/DD-0 /mnt/sysimage/tmp
• chroot /mnt/sysimage
• cd /tmp/DD-0

thanks again 

Tariq

[Jimmy Vance]

The driver disk must be used during the initial installation