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Linux and Hardware RAID: an administrator's summary

For RAID to be useful in an enterprise environment, one needs to get a warning when a disk fails, and be able to replace this disk without having to reboot. This page is a summary of the status of some (most/all) hardware RAID drivers supported by the default Linux kernel.

The following criteria is being considered:

Summary of all known drivers

Driver name

Supported

Status

CLI tool

GUI tool

Debian-Installer

3w-xxxx

Yes

No

Yes*

Yes

Yes

3w-9xxx

Yes

No

Yes*

Yes

Yes

aacraid

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

arcmsr

Yes*

No*

Yes*

**

Yes*

cciss

Yes

Yes

?

?

Yes

DAC960

Yes

Yes

?

?

Yes

dpt_i2o

Yes

?

Yes

?

?

gdth

Yes

Yes

No*

?

Yes

hpsa

Yes

Yes

Yes

?

?

ips

Yes

No*

No*

No*

Yes

megaraid

Yes

?

?

?

?

megaraid_mbox

Yes

?

?

?

?

megaraid_sas

Yes

Yes

Proprietary

?

?

mptsas

Yes

Yes

Yes

?

?

mpt2sas

?

?

?

?

?

mptscsih

Yes

Yes

Yes

?

?

Details about individual drivers

3w-xxxx

Hardware using this driver: 3ware 8xxx controllers and earlier.

There is a CLI tool (tw_cli) from 3Ware which supports all functions of the card.

There is a GUI tool (3dm2) accessible via browser used for management and monitoring daemon that configures the RAID, monitors the disk status and sends mail on failure.

Both tools are available as Debian packages from http://jonas.genannt.name/

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo 3w-xxxx in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

3w-9xxx

Hardware using this driver: 3Ware 9xxx as 9500s and newer as 9690SA-8I, 9650SE.

There is a CLI tool (tw_cli) from 3Ware which supports all functions of the card.

There is a GUI tool (3dm2) accessible via browser used for management and monitoring daemon that configures the RAID, monitors the disk status and sends mail on failure.

Both tools are available as Debian packages from http://jonas.genannt.name/

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo 3w-9xxx in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

aacraid

Hardware using this driver: Dell PowerEdge 2650, Adaptec SCSI RAIDs 2200S, 2120S, SATA RAID 2810SA, Perc 3/Di controllers.

Adaptec and Dell used to provide afacli tool for manipulating RAID sets, however it is no longer supporting the current AACRAID controllers. Also, afacli requires libraries that are no longer available in Debian distributions. At the end of aacraid section is the old information on tools available on Dell website, which may be useful for older distributions and controllers.

Current software for managing AAC arrays is available at Adaptec website: http://www.adaptec.com/en-us/downloads/storage_manager/sm/productid=aar-2820sa&dn=adaptec+serial+ata+ii+raid+2820sa.html, latest version is Adaptec Storage Manager v5.20.17414 for Linux (available also in 64bit version).

This RPM archive includes both arcconf binary, as well as Storage Manager - GUI tool, using SUN Java (binaries are included in RPM)

After installing the package, the following actions are required:

Note: arcconf requires libstdc++.so.5 library, available in the libstdc++5 package.

Below is information on the old afacli tool

Dell also provides some admin tools in binary form. See http://linux.dell.com/storage.shtml#aacraid, under the Management Utility heading.

NB: I had some problems with Adaptec 2810SA. Debian kernel freezes (rejected IO to offline devices) in case array becomes downgraded (ie one disk failed). I had to patch kernel with adaptec driver, and kernel stops freezing with one drive fail -- AlexanderVlasov

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo aacraid in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

arcmsr

Hardware using this driver: all ARECA SATA controllers.

Areca is a fairly new player on the SATA Hardware RAID market, but they offer unprecedented features and have excellent driver support for Linux. Their hardware supports RAID-6 in addition to the other levels, and online expansion + migration as well. The driver is in the main kernel as of 2.6.19, but debian supports it since etch (2.6.18).

They have, amongst others, an 'archttp' module which enables a web interface(!) to the card which offers full functionality. Archttp is statically linked so it will run in virtually all circumstances. Since it offers both a wide range of monitoring and maintenance functions, archttp + a webbrowser is all you'll ever need, and it fulfills, IMHO, the functions of CLI, GUI and proc entry all in one. (Well, you really have to see it.)

Beware: archttp tries to use /dev/ttyS0, so if you use it in any other way you should take care about this issue.

CLI tool (statically linked i386 and amd64 binaries) also can be downloaded from ftp site. The 'sg' module must be loaded for it to work, the cli program segfaults without it. Vendor support page: http://www.areca.com.tw/support/main.htm

* The new ARC-18xx series is NOT supported by the old driver included in the Kernel, only the ARC11xx/12xx/13xx/16xx will work

** Most of their series have an out-of-band management with build in Webserver, no need for installing any software to manage controllers/arrays

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo arcmsr in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

cciss

Hardware using this driver: various servers from Compaq/HP, HP ProLiant DL380 G5, etc. (RAID controller HP P410*, etc.)

A daemon detecting status changes and reporting to syslog as SNMP traps is packaged as cpqarrayd. Some information is available in /proc/driver/cciss/cciss0. The array-info tool can extract the RAID status for cciss devices.

The cciss_vol_status tool (packaged as cciss-vol-status) will report RAID status for cciss devices. See bug #656630 for a proposal for a controller status monitoring tool based on cciss_vol_status output.

May be replaced by hpsa in recent kernels

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo cciss in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

DAC960

Hardware using this driver: Mylex AcceleRAID 352/170/160.

Status information is available in /proc/rd/status.

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo DAC960 in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

dpt_i2o

Hardware using this driver: Adaptec SCSI RAIDs 2000S, 2100S, IDE RAID 2400A.

Command-line utilities are packaged for Debian as dpt-i2o-raidutils.

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo dpt_i2o in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

gdth

Hardware using this driver: ICP Vortex GDT6118RD, Intel RAID Controller SRCZCR, Intel SATA RAID Controller SRCS14L.

Status information is available in /proc/scsi/gdth/0. Some tools and drivers are available from the vendor. Some linux tools are available on a CD included with the controller. Debian packages storcon and srcd are hidden in ir1_linux_utils_2.16.zip downloadable from Intel Download service (2.16, i386) or ICP Vortex site (2.17, i386 & amd64)

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo gdth in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

hpsa

This is the 'next generation' driver which replaces cciss for many cards. Notably this driver uses the kernel scsi subsystem rather than implementing its own block device. As such disks presented by this driver will have the normal /dev/sdX naming rather than /dev/cciss/c0d0 used with the cciss driver.

Hardware using this driver: various servers from Compaq/HP, HP ProLiant DL380 G5, etc. (RAID controller HP P410*, etc.)

Utilities for the cciss driver also work with this driver, though they should be directed to use the /dev/sgX generic scsi devices rather than the cciss devices as all the HP specific IOCTL interfaces are identical.

See also HP/ProLiant#HP_Repository and http://hwraid.le-vert.net/wiki/SmartArray for links to the proprietary HP tools, including the hpacucli management CLI tool.

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo hpsa in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

In the above list, "Smart Array G6 controllers" include the P212, P410, P410i, P411, P711m, P712m and P812.

ips

Hardware using this driver: IBM Netfinity 5500, IBM Netfinity 5600, IBM eserver xSeries 226, IBM eserver xSeries 345, IBM eserver xSeries 346.

Information on BIOS version and RAID configuration is available from /proc/scsi/ips/0. This file does not contain the RAID status. Note: /proc/scsi/ips/0 seems to be not provided anymore. Tested with Linux 3.16 and 4.5.

There is a precompiled command line tool (ipssend) available from the vendor CD and IBM's dumplog archive. It can be used to get information on the RAID status, and also be used to configure and administrate the RAID. Note: The ipssend binary does crash when trying to access the non existing /proc/scsi/scsi directory. Tested ibm_utl_ipssend_7.12.14_linux_32-64.zip So this tool seems to be useless with current Linux versions.

There is also a graphical raid tool (RaidMan) available in RPM format from the vendor CD.

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo ips in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

megaraid

Hardware using this driver: Dell PowerEdge 2550.

Status information is supposed to be available in /proc/megaraid/*/raiddrives-*. This was not the case on at least one Dell PowerEdge 2550 machine.

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo megaraid in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

megaraid_mbox

Hardware using this driver: Dell PowerEdge 2850, Intel SATA-RAID controllers.

Note: To use the Intel SRCS28X controller with more than 4GB of system RAM you need at least firmware revision 814B.

Not aware of any method of detecting the status for this RAID.

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo megaraid_mbox in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

megaraid_sas

Hardware using this driver: Dell PowerEdge 2900, Dell PowerEdge 2950, Dell PowerEdge M600, Dell PowerEdge R510, Dell PowerEdge R730, IBM BladeCentre HS22 (via option card), Fujitsu TX120 S2

There's a binary-only CLI tool (MegaCli) available for download from the LSI website. The zip file contains a 32bit RPM package containing the 32bit and 64bit ("MegaCli64") binary. There is also a megasasctl tool to get RAID status available from the megactl package on Sourceforge (with a more up to date fork on github). There are Debian packages of both tools available from http://hwraid.le-vert.net/wiki/DebianPackages.

For easily finding the Linux drive that corresponds to a MegaRAID drive, use megamap.

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo megaraid_sas in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

mptsas

Hardware using this driver: Dell PowerEdge 860, Dell Precision 690 Workstation, IBM BladeCenter HS22.

RAID status can be obtained via the mpt-status tool.

IBM provides a binary only utility called 'CFGGEN' which can make changes to the raid configuration, flash disks and other actions.

LSI provides 'lsiutil' which is notoriously hard to find

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo mptsas in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

mpt2sas

Hardware using this driver: Dell PowerEdge T310, IBM BladeCenter HS23.

You can check the status and other things using the sas2ircu utiliity. More details

A blog post claim supermicro provide a tool to get the status out from the command line.

Supported Devices

The page HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI explains how to identify a PCI device.

The following list is based on the alias fields of modinfo mpt2sas in Debian 3.16 (3.16.7-ckt9-3deb8u1) kernel images.

mptscsih

Hardware using this driver: Sun v20Z, IBM eServer 325/326.

RAID status can be obtained via the mpt-status tool.


CategoryHardware | CategoryStorage | CategorySystemAdministration | CategoryRedundant: merge with other ?CategoryRaid pages