Multiple raid arrays.

[toys19]

Hi I have a gigabyte gam68sm-2sl mobo which has (I think) hardware raid by nvidia. In the raid bios set up screen, I have set up a mirrored array of 2 identical 500gb disks and easily installed F10 on it (x86_64) which just found the raid array and went off and isntalled very nicely thanks.

So now i have placed 2 more identical disks into the machine each of 1TB and I want to add another mirrored raid array so that the machine has 2 raid arrays, a 500gb one and a 1tb one. The raid set up does this nicely and now it says I have 2 raid arrays both healthy.

Well here my skills come to an end, I have tried to set these secodn disks up and I keep gettign stuck so I have some q's.

Is it possible to have multiple raid arrays on a machine??
Why does my existing raid not show up in cat /proc/mdstat? It just shows
Personalities:
Unused devices:<none>
Please help?

I have tried to reinstall F10 with the new array plugged in so that the install would do all this for me, but it just hangs on install. If I unplug this array then it installs fine, I though it was a power issue so I jsut installed an emormous power supply but still have the same problem.

Any help will be met with karmic goodness....

[jedsen]

It is possible to have more than one raid on one system, even to have more than one personality on the same x number of disks.

/proc/mdstat shows the status of software raid, so it wouldn't show your nvidia bios raid. I suggest, for simplicity and because it's probably faster, that you use software raid.

[toys19]

Hi thanks thats useful info. I have a specific application that must use hardware raid, its heavily loaded and all the kit is pretty recent so I am pretty sure that in this case the hardware raid is fastewr. Anyway I am stuck with it.

So I need to eiether solve the problem of why fedora isntall ahngs when my hardware raid has two arrays on it, or install onto one array, plug the other in and then get linux to see it as a raid..

[stevea]

mdstat is for the Linux software RAID. You say you set both arrays up in the bios (aka fake-RAID) so this has nothing to do with mdadm.

I'd rather not tackle the installer hang problem. What happens from a live CD ? What if you reinstall in the oone array then install the other; then what does "fdisk -l" report ?

[toys19]

I'm pretty sure its not fake raid, its hardware raid - Nvidia -and it has its own bios to set it up separate from the mobo bios. I'm no raid expert, but all the lioterature seems to point to the nvidia raid being hardware raid and it is supposed to have 3gb/s transfer rate..
So hanging install aside I can tell you about installation.
I have reinstalled on one array (2 x 1TB) with the other disconnected (otherwise it hangs) then reconnect the other array and set it up in the raid bios. Fdisk-l before I install the second array is:

[root@wendy wendy]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00079565

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 25 200781 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 26 121601 976559220 8e Linux LVM

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00079565

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 25 200781 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 26 121601 976559220 8e Linux LVM



And then when I install the new array (which is 2x 500GB)



[root@wendy wendy]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sda doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00079565

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 25 200781 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2 26 121601 976559220 8e Linux LVM

Disk /dev/sdd: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00079565

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 * 1 25 200781 83 Linux
/dev/sdd2 26 121601 976559220 8e Linux LVM

[toys19]

Pleaase note I have edited the above post as I pasted in the wrong info....

I appreciate your help in advance!!!