Installing FreeBSD on HP Computer that is using software RAID 5

[David Schwartz]

Hi, first post. Howdy y’all.

I definitely agree with this. ZFS cannot work properly if it isn’t aware of the fact that it’s running a RAID. In order to take advantage of bit-rot protection (unless you want to use copies=2), you need to have ZFS construct the array.

> On Jan 2, 2019, at 16:26, Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 2 Jan 2019 11:06:33 +0000, Carmel NY wrote:
>> Three SATA drives, 1,863 GB each, configured into a RAID 5 with 3,762
>> total GB
>> 
>> This is a software RAID, Intel Rapid Storage Technology 16.5.1.1030
>> 
>> I have included the full information at the end. The system is
>> presently running Win 10 PRO just fine. I want to convert it to a
>> FreeBSD 12 system. If I install FreeBSD 12 amd64 utilizing ZFS, will it
>> recognize the drives and set them up correctly or will I have to do
>> something manually? I want to keep the RAID setup and not use the
>> drives individually.
> 
> Is there a reason you don't want to use ZFS's native RAID
> features? It's commonly suggested to not rely on software
> RAID and instead let ZFS manage the drives. You can construct
> the same RAID setups with ZFS as you can with the controller,
> and as you're going to scratch the existing content anyway,
> there is no need to preserve anything of the previous layout.
> 
> More information here:
> 
> http://www.zfsbuild.com/2010/05/26/zfs-raid-levels/
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS#RAID-Z
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Polytropon
> Magdeburg, Germany
> Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
> Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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