URGENT: Need help rebuilding iir RAID5 array with failed drive

[Derek Ragona]

At 09:38 AM 6/26/2008, Garrett Cooper wrote:
>On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 7:30 AM, Casey Scott <casey at phantombsd.org> wrote:
> >
> > ----- "Derek Ragona" <derek at computinginnovations.com> wrote:
> >
> >> At 08:49 AM 6/26/2008, Garrett Cooper wrote:
> >> >Hello,
> >> >       First off sorry for the cross-post. I typically don't do this
> >> >but this is an important question, so please bear with me. I'm just
> >> >trying to get more eyes on the subject so I can (maybe) get a reply
> >> >quicker...
> >> >       I'm running 8-CURRENT on my machine and it appears that one
> >> of
> >> >the disks in my RAID5 array has taken a nose dive (BIOS recognizes
> >> >that it exists, but Intel Matrix Manager claims that the disk is an
> >> >"Offline Member"). After doing some reading it appears that it's
> >> >kaput, so I need to get a replacement disk to fix this one...
> >> >       That aside, I need to determine how to rebuild the array in a
> >> >Unix environment because Intel only provides instructions for how to
> >> >use their Windows matrix manager. If anyone can point me to some
> >> links
> >> >or provide me with some pointers on how to correct this issue, I'd
> >> owe
> >> >you a lot; in fact the next time you come by Santa Cruz, CA I'll
> >> >gladly treat you to some beers or something else you might want
> >> :)...
> >> >Linux solutions (if there isn't a proper one for FreeBSD) are valid,
> >> >as long as the core data remains uncorrupted and I can do what I
> >> need
> >> >to from a LiveCD. I'm just scared to boot up OS and have it do some
> >> >irrevocable operation like fsck -y and assume parity errors are ok
> >> or
> >> >something along those lines  (I don't remember if I set rc.conf to
> >> >fsck -y and I know I can change that from single-user mode, but I
> >> want
> >> >to play things conservatively if at all possible) :\...
> >> >       Filesystem is UFS2 with softupdates of course.
> >> >       Point proven that I need to backup my data more often :(...
> >> >TIA,
> >> >-Garrett
> >> >
> >> >PS If replying on the questions@ list, please CC me as I'm not
> >> >subscribed to that list.
> >>
> >>
> >> Most of the intel RAID functions can be accessed through the BIOS
> >> console
> >> too.  It isn't as pretty as the GUI versions but has the same
> >> functions.
> >>
> >> The drives are labeled so the RAID controller will know a drive was
> >> replaced.  You just need to tell the controller to add it to the array
> >> and
> >> rebuild the array.
> >
> > I haven't seen an Intel card in a while, but if you see an "initialize"
> > option, DON'T USE IT. On other cards it exists, and destroys the volume.
> >
> > Casey
>
>Sean, Casey, and Derek:
>
>Thanks for the replies so far.
>
>Yeah, I stay away from things that say "Initialize", "Delete Array",
>etc :). Part of my concern came from the fact that I got a kernel
>panic the last time I tried to boot into FreeBSD, but that may have
>been because one of my disks was disconnected and the bzero attempt
>was polling some address out of range (I was attempting to
>troubleshoot the issue at the time).
>
>I'm pretty fed up with Intel's ICH9R interface too so I'm hoping
>(crosses fingers) that I'll be able to afford an Adaptec card of some
>flavor that's compatible with -CURRENT. For that I'll ask for advice
>on current@ later on which card to get...
>
>It looks like my figuring out what to do in solving this issue will
>only be solved by grabbing another drive and replacing the dead one.
>Oh well, here goes for an RMA...
>
>TIA,
>-Garrett
>_____________

If you are looking to move up, look at the 3ware RAID cards.  Not sure 
which models work with FreeBSD, but these card do perform very well.

         -Derek

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