Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller
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@Dashrender said in Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller:
@DustinB3403 said in Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller:
@Dashrender said in Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller:
I thought fake RAID still had to be done inside the OS, does it not?
It does, that's what makes it fake.
Then I'm confused how you can't find anything about it or the drives attached to it.
The OS is fooled into believe it's running an R1, how would I see through this layer when I'm on the OS. I'd have to reboot the system to get any real details from the underlying hardware.
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Think about the question you've asked @Dashrender, in order to get details from the drives in an Array, you'd have to go to the RAID controller (Hardware level).
Since this is FakeRAID, there is no hardware level, it's all software, presented from within Windows. So I'm limited to only the tools that the FakeRAID offers.
I could theoretically reboot the host and get into BIOS to maybe pull some details from that (assuming any tooling exists) but that's an IF.
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@Dashrender said in Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller:
@DustinB3403 said in Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller:
@Dashrender said in Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller:
I thought fake RAID still had to be done inside the OS, does it not?
It does, that's what makes it fake.
Then I'm confused how you can't find anything about it or the drives attached to it.
There's a hardware shim to make the FakeRAID look real.
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@DustinB3403 said in Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller:
Think about the question you've asked @Dashrender, in order to get details from the drives in an Array, you'd have to go to the RAID controller (Hardware level).
Since this is FakeRAID, there is no hardware level, it's all software, presented from within Windows. So I'm limited to only the tools that the FakeRAID offers.
I could theoretically reboot the host and get into BIOS to maybe pull some details from that (assuming any tooling exists) but that's an IF.
What may help in the description....
A SATA (or SAS) controller is always hardware, it has to be it is what holds the physical plugs. There's always a hardware controller. RAID can be built into that controller (making it a RAID controller) or done in software elsewhere (or even put in hardware elsewhere.)
In this case, the hardware controller handles an abstraction so that you can't see the drives, but it doesn't do RAID. The RAID is all in software, but it's a nasty controller that blocks you from SMART data on the drives to make it look like a RAID controller.
Intel drive controllers are the absolute worst.
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I haven't dealt with it in so long, I thought I recalled a way to see the drives when last I dealt with it, besides just in the BIOS
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@Dashrender said in Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller:
I haven't dealt with it in so long, I thought I recalled a way to see the drives when last I dealt with it, besides just in the BIOS
I think if you turn the mode off.
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Storage Spaces is probably what is hiding the drives from the rest of the system. That's how my personal computer I have running storage spaces works at least.
The only reason I have storage spaces running is so I can pipe in about how it works. So terrible, no insight into anything. Even fakeraid at least lets you get drive status and smartctl stats.
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@travisdh1 said in Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller:
Storage Spaces is probably what is hiding the drives from the rest of the system. That's how my personal computer I have running storage spaces works at least.
The only reason I have storage spaces running is so I can pipe in about how it works. So terrible, no insight into anything. Even fakeraid at least lets you get drive status and smartctl stats.
Yeah, there are 2 raid platforms listed on this system so it could be SS or Intel's crap.
So there isn't much I can do, besides drum up a possible project out of it to rebuild the server with a proper raid controller for this use case to get details so the customer isn't grumpy.
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@DustinB3403 said in Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller:
Yeah, there are 2 raid platforms listed on this system so it could be SS or Intel's crap.
SS is real software RAID, no FakeRAID. If you have SS, it'll always show the SMART data.
Now, someone might have done SS on TOP of FakeRAID and really, really screwed things up!
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Neither of the listed options are production level RAID. But one is real software and the other is FakeRAID. SS is definitely the better of the two, but it's still nascent and considered not safe enough to be considered for production storage by normal standards.
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@scottalanmiller said in Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller:
@DustinB3403 said in Intel Chipset SATA RAID Controller:
Yeah, there are 2 raid platforms listed on this system so it could be SS or Intel's crap.
SS is real software RAID, no FakeRAID. If you have SS, it'll always show the SMART data.
Now, someone might have done SS on TOP of FakeRAID and really, really screwed things up!
Hrm. . . now I wanna go and check to see if SS is actually running. I know SS is real raid, just like MD.
But w/e.
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I just confirmed, this system is only using the Intel controller, and not SS.
