Can fake raid be converted to linux software raid?
Linux - GeneralThis Linux forum is for general Linux questions and discussion.
If it is Linux Related and doesn't seem to fit in any other forum then this is the place.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
Can fake raid be converted to linux software raid?
I'm sorta a n00b, so I hope I'm posting in the correct place.
I'm happily using Suse Pro 9.2. I was using a Highpoint RocketRaid 1640 with 4 hard drives in a raid0+1 configuration using the open source drivers off the highpoint web site.
Well I got the urge to tweak, so I made me a 2.6.10 kernel with a bootsplash and CIOCGDEV patch.
I came to find out that I could no longer compile the highpoint open source drivers and figured it was time to use the linux kernel raid support instead, I had heard it was a better option anyway.
Well this lead me down the path of finding and learning about DMRAID. Cool little utility... however... I would like to know how I can convert these raided driver to regular linux software raid drives so the Suse boot.md script can do all it's nifty raid configuring etc. without all the **** I had to mangle to get it mounting with dmraid. I guess when i say regular, I mean I can manage it with the Suse partitioning tools and have suse mount it etc. without my hackery.
So to re-iterate, I have my Highpoint raid mounting with dmraid, is there no way to move thise to a regular linux software raid so that suse can just recogize it and start it up normally?
Your Highpoint Raid is a hardware raid, nothing fake about it. If it's not supported in later kernels and you want to do a software raid, remove the card from your system and attach the drives either to the existing connections or you may have to get an expansion card to connect your drives, if they're either SCSI or IDE.. etc.
But to tell you the truth, hardware raid seems to fail less than software raid. Having hardware control the raid takes less load off the cpu and system. You'll get better performance as well.
Originally posted by trickykid Your Highpoint Raid is a hardware raid, nothing fake about it. If it's not supported in later kernels and you want to do a software raid, remove the card from your system and attach the drives either to the existing connections or you may have to get an expansion card to connect your drives, if they're either SCSI or IDE.. etc.
But to tell you the truth, hardware raid seems to fail less than software raid. Having hardware control the raid takes less load off the cpu and system. You'll get better performance as well.
There is plenty fake about it. The highpoints bios is loaded into ram and executed. It has no coprocessor whatsoever. This is true of all cheap low end raid cards. No processing is actually being done on the highpoit other than the standard ATA stuff that all IDE controllers do. When I load the HPT366 module, it recognizes the drives as vanilla ide drivers.
The only difference between linux software raid and highpoints raid is that its a different piece of software. Not to mention, using the linux software raid, throughput is actually faster, since there is no real co-processor on the high point.
Originally posted by jmacdonald801 There is plenty fake about it. The highpoints bios is loaded into ram and executed. It has no coprocessor whatsoever. This is true of all cheap low end raid cards. No processing is actually being done on the highpoit other than the standard ATA stuff that all IDE controllers do. When I load the HPT366 module, it recognizes the drives as vanilla ide drivers.
The only difference between linux software raid and highpoints raid is that its a different piece of software. Not to mention, using the linux software raid, throughput is actually faster, since there is no real co-processor on the high point.
I understand what your saying since I just mentioned hardware raid in general having better performance.. If your looking for performance along with compatibility with your newer kernel, get a newer hardware based raid controller.. but other than that, your better off yanking that card out and plugging in your drives in an alternative way to setup software raid.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.