Mike Jakubik wrote:
Can someone tell my why there is no RAID support for the VT8237 SATA
controller, when the chipset is listed as supported in the ata man page?
I've wasted enough money and time buying hardware and hoping that a
particular onboard ATA raid chips is supported. I understand that the
manufacturers may not release the data required to write a driver, and
that they keep changing specs around, but if we could at least have
documentation stating which of the common onboard raid chipsets are
supported. The motherboard in question is a gigabyte GA-K8VM800M. FreeBSD
5.3 detects the chipset, but shows the drives individually, not as an ar
array.



Mike,

I'm not sure what the status of RAID on a VT8237 is, but is it possible the array(s) is(are) there and you are not noticing them?

Most of these lower end PATA/SATA "RAID" controllers are doing their work in software. As such you will be able to see (not to mention mount, modify, etc...) the physical RAID components in addition to the actual array.

For example, I have a Promise controller in my system with two RAID 1 arrays defined:

  ~ > ls /dev/ar?
  /dev/ar0        /dev/ar1
  ~ > sudo atacontrol status ar0
  ar0: ATA RAID1 subdisks: ad4 ad6 status: READY
  ~ > sudo atacontrol status ar1
  ar1: ATA RAID1 subdisks: ad5 ad7 status: READY

However, I can also physically see the components:

  ~ > ls /dev/ad?
  /dev/ad4        /dev/ad5        /dev/ad6        /dev/ad7
  ~ > sudo atacontrol list
  ATA channel 0:
      Master: acd0 <SONY DVD RW DRU-700A/VY02> ATA/ATAPI revision 5
      Slave:       no device present
  ATA channel 1:
      Master: acd1 <TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-R1202/1020> ATA/ATAPI revision 5
      Slave:       no device present
  ATA channel 2:
      Master:  ad4 <Maxtor 6Y120P0/YAR41BW0> ATA/ATAPI revision 7
      Slave:   ad5 <MAXTOR 6L080J4/A93.0500> ATA/ATAPI revision 5
  ATA channel 3:
      Master:  ad6 <Maxtor 6Y120P0/YAR41BW0> ATA/ATAPI revision 7
      Slave:   ad7 <MAXTOR 6L080J4/A93.0500> ATA/ATAPI revision 5
  ATA channel 4:
      Master:      no device present
      Slave:       no device present
  ATA channel 5:
      Master:      no device present
      Slave:       no device present

IIRC sysinstall shows the RAID components before the arrays, when it comes time to choose a disk or disks to install on.

-Ash
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