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I have a Dell Precision 670 with 2 x 2TB Sata HDDs, once the machine boots, I press CTRL + A to get into the Adaptec Raid utility and configured a RAID 0 Array making it 2TB almost.

I then mark the raid array as bootable and it seems fine, but when I boot with the Turnkey file server disc to install, it asks me to select ONE SATA out of the two attached to install the file server on.

Why is it not presenting the array as ONE Logical Raid Volume of RAID 0?

Do I need to do something else?

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  • I perfectly know that I'm not answering the question but since you're facing a problem similar the one I've had in my office I'd suggest you to check Openfiler too
    – Pitto
    May 19, 2011 at 15:23

2 Answers 2

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the raid controller you have there is fakeraid, not proper raid, so using it, especially in raid0 config is particularly dangerous. Having gotten that out of the way, the recommended way of setting up a system with no proper raid controller with Linux is to use mdraid, which is better managed and safer than any fakeraid, especially if you need 3rd party drivers for it.

The reason you're not seeing one large volume is exactly that - the OS doesn't recognise the controller as a raid controller (because it really is not), and detects the two disks.

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  • when you say mdraid, is it something like what you create using the Windows Server disk management utility / snap-in ? I mean, Software raid ?
    – Mutahir
    May 19, 2011 at 15:35
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    Hah. I missed the Precision name! Yeah you could try using software raid as dyasny suggests.
    – Tatas
    May 19, 2011 at 15:36
  • yes, mdraid is software raid in Linux. man mdadm for details, or you can google it - loads of tutorials out and about.
    – dyasny
    May 19, 2011 at 16:57
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    btw, since you're using very low end hardware, hardly fit for a server, maybe it would be better to go for a safer implementation than raid and use LVM instaed. By formatting both your drives as PVs and adding both to a single VG, yo'll get the same amount of available space over a single partition, but if you don't stripe, your setup will survive the loss of a disk without losing all the data - only the data on the lost disk.
    – dyasny
    May 19, 2011 at 16:59
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Does the Turnkey fileserver disk include the Raid card driver? You may need to manually add this to your disk. The driver can be downloaded from support.dell.com.

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  • Does this mean that even though the raid is setup fine but Linux is unable to see any raid controller to recognize the configuration it has done ? So I would need that specific Adaptec drivers for Linux ?
    – Mutahir
    May 19, 2011 at 15:29
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    Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.
    – Tatas
    May 19, 2011 at 15:32
  • then may be I am out of luck :-) as this is a very OLD system and may be they won't have drivers for Linux ! Can you recommend a cheap and cheerful raid card for this scenario?
    – Mutahir
    May 19, 2011 at 15:32

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