Help configuring RAID0 - dmraid with SATA II drives and nvidia nforce 410

[Robin Laing]

Debbie Deutsch wrote:
> Maybe someone can help me figure out how to get RAID 0 up and running under
> FC 4.  My system has a pair of SATA II drives and an nforce 410 chipset.  I
> have installed the latest nvidia drivers for that chipset (another story -
> they are for audio and ethernet).  Currently I have it booting off an
> external USB hard drive.  The BIOS is configured to place the two hard
> drives in RAID 0 configuration.  It says the RAID array is healthy.  I have
> read as many HOWTOs and message threads as I have been able to find on the
> subject.  
> 
> The hard drives are brand new.  There is no data or partitions from other
> operating systems to preserve.  Here is what I have tried.
> 
> 1. From FC4 (running on the USB drive), try to see the RAID array using
> dmraid.  Nada.  (I tried dmraid -s, dmraid -ay, dmraid -b.  That last
> command does show the USB drive.)
> 
> 2. Attempt to install FC4 onto the RAID array.  Disk Druid complains that it
> does not see any disks.
> 
> I know some people advise to turn off "fake raid" support in the BIOS and
> just do software raid.  So, here are my questions:
> 
> A) is there any way at all (from inside FC4 when it is running or during
> install) to get at the raid array that I have made in the BIOS?
> 
> B) if the answer to the above is no, and I need to disable RAID in the BIOS,
> do I still use dmraid (because the nv_sata driver is involved) to set up the
> array under FC4?  Or can I accomplish everything in Disk Druid during the
> install?  Or do I need to set things up in Disk Druid and then activate the
> RAID array in dmraid?
> 
> C) if the answer to A) is yes, what advantage would there be to disabling
> the BIOS RAID anyway?  (I'm just curious.)
> 
> When I finally do get this working, perhaps I should write a HOWTO for this
> - a real step-by-step cookbook.  OTOH, FC5 is coming soon...
> 
> TIA
> 
> Debbie
> 
> 

Forget about the bios settings for RAID.  They need special software 
and that may be a Windows Only issue.  Install both SATA cards and 
then configure them using raid tools.

My bios settings did nothing to get the RAID 1 working on my computer. 
  Using the raid tools I had the drives up and running in no time. 
Note, I only use the RAID drives for my home directory.

A benefit of using totally software raid is if you want to add more 
drives.  It is very easy and you can move the drives around between 
controllers without much work.

I added two drives and a controller, moved one of my drives from the 
MB SATA port to the new controller port.  Put one of the new drives on 
the empty MB port and the other on the new controller.  Booted the 
machine and the original RAID was up and running.  Configured the new 
drives as RAID 1.  Created an LVM and then moved all my data to the 
new LVM.  Converted the old RAID array to LVM and added it to the 
Volume and resized the partition.  It was just that easy.