New to RAID

kofi · 09-18-2006, 10:57 AM

So I recently acquired a Dell Poweredge 1800 with two 250GB hard drives and installed Redhat AS 4 on this bad boy.

I used the Dell RAID controller to create a hardware RAID 1 on the system before installing Linux. Everything works great and it identifies the RAID 1 when the computer posts.

However in linux, all I see is sda under dev. It shows all the correct partitions and all but shows me no evidence of the second drive being there. I am just curious, with hardware raid, does the raid controller take care of it in the background so the OS doesnt see the the other drives?

Just curious. I don't want to wait for a drive to die only to find out That the RAID is not working.

Thanks for all the help.

Kofi.

EdR · 09-18-2006, 11:41 AM

kofi-

reboot your system and when prompted, go into the disk management.
if you look under the manage disks option, you can see your raid devices and their health status.

see http://linux.cudeso.be/raid.php for a good raid info page.

TSquaredF · 09-18-2006, 01:38 PM

So, what's supposed to be wrong? Linux will see a RAID 1 array as one disk. Be worried if it shows more than one. As EdR said, check the RAID BIOS, as you are booting, to get info on individual disks.
Regards,
Bill

farslayer · 09-18-2006, 03:11 PM

You could always consult Dells site for Management utilities that may allow you to view the status of your system and array from within Linux...
http://linux.dell.com/storage.shtml
http://linux.dell.com/monitoring.shtml

And since RHEL is supported by Dell, chances are good the packages you need will be a simple download away..

Code:

Management Utility

    * perc-cerc-apps-6.03-A06.tar.gz includes Dellmgr-5.31, linflash-3.01, Megamon-4.0-0a, percsnmp-4.09-1 (Search support.dell.com for R71524).
    * Older releases
          o lin_apps_a04.tar.gz includes dellmgr 5.22, linflash 2.14, megamon 3.6, and percsnmp-4.06. (Search support.dell.com for R49828).
          o CERC_LinApps-5.22.tar.gz includes dellmgr 5.22, linflash 2.10, megamon 3.6, and percnmp 4.06. This is a useful set of utilities for managing, monitoring, and upgrading your controller.
          o megaraid-CERC_ATA100.tar.gz includes dellmgr 5.16, linflash 2.05, megamon 3.0, megarac 1.00 and percnmp 4.02.
          o megaraid-util-rh7.3.tar.gz includes dellmgr 5.11, megaflash 2.01, megamon 2.6, and megaraid-snmp 3.00. This is a useful set of utilities for managing, monitoring, and upgrading your controller.
          o dellmgr-5.11-1.tar.gz same as in the above RPM, in .tar.gz format. By popular request. To preserve the path, extract as: tar -Pxvzf dellmgr-5.11.1.tar.gz
          o DellMgr v5.07a for PERC 3/SC, 3/DCL, 3/DC, 3/QC, 2/SC, 2/DC
          o megamgr management utility for PERC 2/SC, 2/DC (depreciated)

kofi · 09-18-2006, 05:41 PM

Thanks guys... you have been very helpful.. .. I did your suggestions and all is well. I guess I wanted to make sure.. that the RAID was infact working and not to assume.

Thanks.