[SOLVED] Need help with Fake RAID | Arch Linux Community | Page 1

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 1:42 AM

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Hi! So I have an Asus motherboard with an Intel Rapid Storage controller. I followed the guide from the motherboard manual and successfully created a RAID in my BIOS (5xSSDs with the same volumes). I've read Arch wiki articles about mdadm, dmraid and about FakeRAID (though the FakeRAID article is about installing Arch on it but not about it's general usage but that's another topic) but I still cannot figure out what would be my next steps to actually use the RAID that I have created. This might be an ultra newbie question, but how to actually:

Check if everything, that my controller (the motherboard or whatever) has done is correct, and if not, how to fix it?
If it is correct and my system identifies it correctly, how do I attach it as a storage (I am not going to use it as a boot drive)?

And the main question is: do I use the controller on the motherboard (to create/maintain RAID) or it is better to create a RAID using pure Arch utilities, such as mdadm?

cat /proc/mdstat output:

Personalities : [raid6] [raid5] [raid4]
md126 : active (auto-read-only) raid5 sda[4] sdb[3] sdc[2] sdd[1] sde[0]
      1953536000 blocks super external:/md127/0 level 5, 32k chunk, algorithm 0 [5/5] [UUUUU]

md127 : inactive sdb[4](S) sde[3](S) sdd[2](S) sdc[1](S) sda[0](S)
      12920 blocks super external:imsm

unused devices: <none>```

blkid output:

/dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID="84862732-dc75-450f-88c0-c69a9b521d76" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="68b38ee6-f5f9-0346-abe5-d54df1f7b45f"
/dev/sdd: TYPE="isw_raid_member"
/dev/sdb: TYPE="isw_raid_member"
/dev/sde: TYPE="isw_raid_member"
/dev/sdc: TYPE="isw_raid_member"
/dev/nvme1n1p2: UUID="b9333984-21be-4d9d-9c23-17312ffbab79" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="74cf883f-7164-2b40-b4d8-211892940608"
/dev/nvme1n1p1: UUID="91FA-784F" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="1efedd7e-ab8d-0344-9415-2ff11fd03856"
/dev/sda: TYPE="isw_raid_member"```

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mdadm --detail --scan output:

ARRAY /dev/md/imsm0 metadata=imsm UUID=1741c430:7a020ac5:95200cb4:66711c7c
ARRAY /dev/md/RAID_Storage_0 container=/dev/md/imsm0 member=0 UUID=d77fc990:5e0e7490:6da40368:f136384b```

I would appreciate any help.

left horizon Dec 25, 2022, 1:47 AM

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mdadm is software raid

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fake raid is something like intel rst

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oh nvm
seems like mdadm can also manage fakeraid

left horizon Dec 25, 2022, 1:52 AM

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wind rapids Hi! So I have an Asus motherboard with an Intel Rapid Storage controller. I foll...

to answer your main question
i think it's better you just use software raid with stuff like (dmraid and mdadm) since it would be much easier to create the array

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 1:55 AM

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left horizon to answer your main question i think it's better you just use software raid with...

Thank you. I'll wait for anyone else to see if anything can be done here because I kinda have hopes to use the Rapid Storage controller lol, but if not, I'll just follow the guides on how to create a raid with mdadm

ebon solsticeBOT Dec 25, 2022, 1:55 AM

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i0bz received a thank you cookie!

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 1:59 AM

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mdadm --detail /dev/md127 output:

/dev/md127:
           Version : imsm
        Raid Level : container
     Total Devices : 5

   Working Devices : 5


              UUID : 1741c430:7a020ac5:95200cb4:66711c7c
     Member Arrays : /dev/md/RAID_Storage_0

    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice

       -       8       64        -        /dev/sde
       -       8       32        -        /dev/sdc
       -       8        0        -        /dev/sda
       -       8       48        -        /dev/sdd
       -       8       16        -        /dev/sdb

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mdadm --detail /dev/dm126 output:

         Container : /dev/md/imsm0, member 0
        Raid Level : raid5
        Array Size : 1953536000 (1863.04 GiB 2000.42 GB)
     Used Dev Size : 488384000 (465.76 GiB 500.11 GB)
      Raid Devices : 5
     Total Devices : 5

             State : clean
    Active Devices : 5
   Working Devices : 5
    Failed Devices : 0

            Layout : left-asymmetric
        Chunk Size : 32K

Consistency Policy : resync


              UUID : d77fc990:5e0e7490:6da40368:f136384b
    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
       4       8        0        0      active sync   /dev/sda
       3       8       16        1      active sync   /dev/sdb
       2       8       32        2      active sync   /dev/sdc
       1       8       48        3      active sync   /dev/sdd
       0       8       64        4      active sync   /dev/sde```

left horizon Dec 25, 2022, 3:52 AM

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well
they're already in an array

left horizon Dec 25, 2022, 3:52 AM

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wind rapids mdadm --detail /dev/md127 output: ``` /dev/md127: Version : imsm ...

coukd yoy show
lsblk -f

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 4:30 AM

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left horizon coukd yoy show `lsblk -f`

sda         isw_raid_member 1.2.04
├─md126
└─md127
sdb         isw_raid_member 1.2.04
├─md126
└─md127
sdc         isw_raid_member 1.2.04
├─md126
└─md127
sdd         isw_raid_member 1.2.04
├─md126
└─md127
sde         isw_raid_member 1.2.04
├─md126
└─md127
nvme0n1
└─nvme0n1p1 ext4            1.0          84862732-dc75-450f-88c0-c69a9b521d76  549.6G    36% /faststorage
nvme1n1
├─nvme1n1p1 vfat            FAT32        91FA-784F                             125.9M     0% /boot/efi
└─nvme1n1p2 ext4            1.0          b9333984-21be-4d9d-9c23-17312ffbab79  123.6G    68% /```

left horizon Dec 25, 2022, 4:31 AM

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@wind rapids you just created the arrays right?

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 4:32 AM

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left horizon <@290181416602304514> you just created the arrays right?

Yeah, I made an array in bios and that's it

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I just don't know what would be next steps in my particular case

left horizon Dec 25, 2022, 4:32 AM

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oh
so this must be mdadm handling fake raid

anyways
yeah if you want to use them
just create a filesystem on /dev/md126 and /dev/md127

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 4:33 AM

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but why there are two places (/dev/md126 and /dev/md127) instead of 1?

left horizon Dec 25, 2022, 4:33 AM

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🤷‍♂️

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you created 2 arrays

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 4:35 AM

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I don't think it's 2 arrays... I think the second volume or whatever it is represent something related to an array... that's my understanding. I found some site with "useful mdadm commands" and their mdadm --detail --scan --verbose is different to mine

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Their, versus mine:

   devices=/dev/sda,/dev/sdb,/dev/sdc,/dev/sdd,/dev/sde
ARRAY /dev/md/RAID_Storage_0 level=raid5 num-devices=5 container=/dev/md/imsm0 member=0 UUID=d77fc990:5e0e7490:6da40368:f136384b
   devices=/dev/sda,/dev/sdb,/dev/sdc,/dev/sdd,/dev/sde

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On mine, it says level=container and their is just a regular raid1. But again, my raid was not created by mdadm

left horizon Dec 25, 2022, 4:37 AM

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weird
the 2 you created uses the same block devices

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 4:37 AM

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It's not 2 RAIDS, I created one

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It's just not possible to create two in the interface

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 4:38 AM

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wind rapids Their, versus mine: ```ARRAY /dev/md/imsm0 level=container num-devices=5 metada...

wait, I am blind

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It literally says ARRAY /dev/md/RAID_Storage_0 level=raid5 lol

left horizon Dec 25, 2022, 4:39 AM

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wind rapids Their, versus mine: ```ARRAY /dev/md/imsm0 level=container num-devices=5 metada...

oh ok i think i get it now

i think the imsm0 is the one created by you in the bios
and for mdadm to use that
it created an array for it on top of it
which is Raid_Storage_0

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 4:39 AM

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So I guess I should make a FS there --- /dev/md/RAID_Storage_0

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 4:40 AM

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left horizon oh ok i think i get it now i think the imsm0 is the one created by you in the b...

There was an option in bios to name a raid, and I named it RAID_storage

left horizon Dec 25, 2022, 4:40 AM

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yeah

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 4:40 AM

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Hmm lets see if it would work

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I guess it worked, lemme try to auto mount it on boot and see if it would work

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 4:59 AM

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left horizon yeah

Lmao, it totally worked. So it was that easy, but the lack of documentation how to do that properly when you create a RAID in bios made me feel like I would not ever gonna understand this... Thanks for your help anyways 😛

ebon solsticeBOT Dec 25, 2022, 4:59 AM

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i0bz received a thank you cookie!

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 5:00 AM

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I feel like I need to add this information to some kind of documentation but I don't even know where lol

left horizon Dec 25, 2022, 5:00 AM

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wait so you just create an array fron the bios
and mdadm will just detect it?

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 5:00 AM

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Yes

left horizon Dec 25, 2022, 5:01 AM

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i thought you had to do some bit more fiddling to make it detect it

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 5:01 AM

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That's what I did: created it in bios, booted up in arch, run all the commands that you see above and that's all. So you just have to create a FS there and mount it. Ez

left horizon Dec 25, 2022, 5:01 AM

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aight then
now that it's solved

mark this as solved

wind rapids Dec 25, 2022, 5:02 AM

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Yeah I will in a sec

#[SOLVED] Need help with Fake RAID