@DustinB3403 said in Is Intel VROC FakeRAID?:

@scottalanmiller

I'm not shocked.

Par for the course for Intel storage.

@dbeato said in Goodbye hardware monitoring on HPE Gen10 and newer equipment running ESXi:

@dashrender However centrally managed doesn't mean site to site VPN. I don't get MSP that have site to site VPNs to their customers. It is not feasible to maintain, it is a high risk and very old school.

of course it doesn't.

using a tool like ScreenConnect - having all customer machines in a single account - means SC's hacked, then ever client is hacked...

@Pete-S said in Blind swap / automatic rebuild on linux:

@DustinB3403 said in Blind swap / automatic rebuild on linux:

@Pete-S said in Blind swap / automatic rebuild on linux:

@travisdh1 said in Blind swap / automatic rebuild on linux:

@Pete-S said in Blind swap / automatic rebuild on linux:

@travisdh1 said in Blind swap / automatic rebuild on linux:

@Pete-S said in Blind swap / automatic rebuild on linux:

I often see that the argument for using hardware raid is to be able to initiate an automatic rebuild by just swapping a faulty drive for a new one.
A lot of people assume that software raid can't do that. But that's incorrect.

Software raid on linux (as in md managed by mdadm) can do the exact the same thing.

It's under policy and partition policy in mdadm.conf. You'll find on the man mdadm.conf page.
The spare-same-slot option would be the one that works the same way as hardware controllers usually do.

I haven't used it myself since I prefer to initiate the rebuild myself. But I wonder if you guys have used it?

I don't think blind swap is about automatic rebuild, that's a given no matter what software/hardware RAID is running. It's more about seeing the light is red instead of green on drive 6, so you know that is the one to replace.

The only example of not having that available, that I can think of, is https://www.45drives.com/

I don't know man.
A typical SMB would have no monitoring and any server would be stuck in a closet somewhere. Nobody would notice any red lights until several months later or until something breaks and then they'd have no clue what to do about it, wouldn't know who to call and wouldn't have any idea if the server even has warranty (it never has). A spare drive wouldn't be available unless it was an old discarded drive left on the shelf from the last time something was replaced.

While probably true, that doesn't really have anything to do with blind swap.

I'm just saying those that have their server park under control doesn't really need any LEDs. And those that really needs it, doesn't look at it.

But it would actually be a small thing to make a script that would indicate faulty drives. You look at /proc/mdstat and any drive showing a _ instead of U is lit up on the drive bay. It's controlled by SGPIO or SES. That's how the raid controller does it.

I thought MD was already capable of performing this. . .

I don't think so but I could be wrong.

I mean you could run raid 1 on a pair of sd cards. Since that md works on any type of block device or partition there is no guarantee that there are any drive bay lights or anything of that nature. But it's possible that there is an option for it.

Has a quick look and it looks like the ledmon package monitors md arrays and set LEDs accordingly.
So yes, software raid can indicate what drive has an error directly on the chassis with some additional software.

I just confirmed, this system is only using the Intel controller, and not SS.

This is how drive testing is such a deep topic. You need to try and match the load, and consider all the things. CrystalDisk does not do that.

You can set up some really good tests with iometer. (I think that's waht it's called, i can't remember now it's been a long time and can't look it up atm)

@StorageNinja said in RAID rebuild times 16TB drive:

@scottalanmiller said in RAID rebuild times 16TB drive:

Its a system, not an IO, bottleneck typically. Especially with RAID 6. Its math that runs on a single thread.

Distributed storage systems with per object raid FTW here. If I have every VMDK running it's own rebuild process (vSAN) or every individual LUN/CPG (how Compellent or 3PAR do it) then a given drive failing is a giant party across all of the drives in the cluster/system. (Also how the fancy erasure code array systems run this).

Yeah, that's RAIN and that basically solves everything 🙂

@Obsolesce You can watch it on Starwind YouTube channel.

@WrCombs said in How to Stop an Ongoing RAID Rebuild HP P420i RAID Controller:

we use Intel Rapid Storage - CTL +I on Boot gets you there? - Disclaimer I may be thinking of Software RAID rather than Hardware RAID - but It may be worth a shot to try..

Yeah, Intel Rapid Storage is the most prominent example of Fake RAID. So it is software.

@Pete-S said in Server with multiple backplane / Drive Configuration:

@CCWTech said in Server with multiple backplane / Drive Configuration:

@Pete-S said in Server with multiple backplane / Drive Configuration:

@CCWTech said in Server with multiple backplane / Drive Configuration:

@Pete-S said in Server with multiple backplane / Drive Configuration:

What server/model is it?

HP ML350 Gen 10

https://techlibrary.hpe.com/docs/iss/ML350_Gen10/setup_install/

OK, looks like there are many storage options on that machine and many different raid controller options as well.

But, there are no SAS expanders on the backplanes. Backplanes are straight "dumb" wiring so to speak. HPE has an additional SAS expander card that have to be installed if you're using that.

So if you have 16 drive bays I assume 8x2.5" drive bays per "box". You then probably have it paired with the P816i-a controller in which case you have each drive bay directly wired to one SAS port from the controller.

So it makes no performance difference how you install the drives. I would however put the SSDs in one box (one backplane) and the HDDs in the other - just to make it less confusing and less of chance to pull the wrong drive when something fails.

I don't understand why you would use 2.5" HDDs at all though but that is another matter. The server can also be configured with one 8x2.5" and one 4x3.5" bay which would be my preference.

Yes, it is the HP SAS expander card I'm using.

Since the backplanes in that server doesn't do anything, it makes no difference in what bays you put the drives. Not from a performance perspective and not from a redundancy perspective.

From the SAS expander to the backplane to the drive is electrically the same as just having a straight cable. So there is nothing that can fail - unless you physically abuse it.

The backplane does have some electronic components on it though but that is for driving the LEDs in the drive bays.

Awesome thank you everyone!

@matteo-nunziati said in Deciding Between Hardware and Software RAID in My FreeNAS Deployment:

@saniplastic said in Deciding Between Hardware and Software RAID in My FreeNAS Deployment:

@DustinB3403 said in Deciding Between Hardware and Software RAID in My FreeNAS Deployment:

metadata

metadata?

please explain more.

The config files where the vm is defined. Do not backup the vm disk only. I suppose he referes to this.

I backup with veeam.
whole vm files.

Placeholder

Interesting but also I get confused with all the comments XD