Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:35:35 -0800 From: Ravi Pokala <rp_freebsd@mac.com> To: Alexander Motin <mav@FreeBSD.org> Cc: freebsd-geom@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Bootable RAID10 on 9.0-RELEASE Message-ID: <CB507438.ABA83%rpokala@mac.com> In-Reply-To: <4F2B0E74.9070809@FreeBSD.org>
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-----Original Message----- From: Alexander Motin <mav@FreeBSD.org> Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:30:12 +0200 To: Ravi Pokala <rp_freebsd@mac.com> Cc: <freebsd-geom@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: Bootable RAID10 on 9.0-RELEASE >Hi. > > > I expect there must be an easier way. > >If your system has one of supported software RAID BIOSes (Intel, >AMD/Promise, NVIDIA, SiI, JMicron), you may just use geom_raid to boot >from it's RAID10 volume with no additional magic. I played around with a VM (with all the IO I was doing, I'm real glad it was backed by SSDs!) before I had the actual hardware, and managed to get "close" to what I wanted: 1) Install on a temporary drive. 2) Set up GPT partitions, *including writing the pmbr and gptboot*, on each of the final drives. It took me a few attempts before I realized I was creating the partition table but not installing the bootcode. 3) Use `gmirror' to create a mirror of the partition which will hold the / filesystem, *on all four of the final drives*. That means you will end up with a quadruplicated /. 4) Use `gmirror' to create mirrors of da0pX and da1pX, and da2pX and da3pX on the final drives. 5) Use `gstripe' to create stripes across the corresponding mirrors. 6) Create filesystems on the quadruplicated mirror and the stripes. 7) Add the right entries to /boot/loader.conf, update /etc/fstab, etc. 8) Use 'dump | restore' to copy everything from the temporary drive to the four-way-mirror and the striped-mirrors. 9) Change the boot-order, and make sure you can boot off the four-way mirror and mount the striped-mirrors. When I got a chance to play with the actual hardware, I found that it has an LSI SAS controller which is supported by mfi(4). I ended up setting up the RAID10 in the pre-boot environment, then just creating GPT partitions on mfid0 and going from there. *Much* easier (once I dug up the documentation on LSI's website), works fine, and the interface offered by `mfiutil' looks pretty reasonable. Thanks, rp > >-- >Alexander Motin >_______________________________________________ >freebsd-geom@freebsd.org mailing list >http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-geom >To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-geom-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
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