Author Topic: RAID 1/Mirror under OS/2  (Read 9832 times)

emerald

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RAID 1/Mirror under OS/2
« on: March 17, 2017, 05:30:42 pm »
Hi,

I'm afraid I know the answer already, but hopefully I'm missing something here.  I would like to setup a basic mirror on a PC I use as my home "server", which I'm running eCS 2.x on.  It's an Asrock 990FX Extreme motherboard with an AMD SB950 south bridge.  Specs are here:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/990FX%20Extreme3/index.us.asp?cat=Specifications

In theory it supports RAID, and I have configured my two drives I want to mirror, and the BIOS shows it as having a logical representation of the two drives mirrored presenting as one logical drive.  Of course, when I boot, eCS and either with LVM or dFsee, I see the physical drives, and not the single logical one.

So, does anyone know of a way to address the logical drives?  In lieu of the onboard controller, does anyone know of a SATA  controller available that will work with eCS for RAID?

And if not in hardware, what are the thoughts of mirroring in the OS?  I see over on hobbes there is a RAID driver, VRAID 2.3.  Does anyone have experience with that or other software implementations to mirror drives they would recommend?

Thanks!


ivan

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Re: RAID 1/Mirror under OS/2
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2017, 07:40:22 pm »
All the 'on board' RAID systems are software RAID and there is no driver for them in OS/2.

All our servers use hardware RAID and SCSI drives although we are considering getting an SATA hardware RAID controller for testing but the ones we have been looking at are nor cheap. 

Other than that I can't help.

emerald

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Re: RAID 1/Mirror under OS/2
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2017, 07:49:54 pm »
Hi Ivan,

that's what my memory from way back was - the onboard PC RAID we see really isn't hardware RAID and expects a WIndows OS.

Have you narrowed down the list of possible SATA RAID controllers that might work?  Expense is a mixed bag.  What is all your important information, documents, photos etc. worth?  Suddenly, even several hundred dollars is cheap compared to the loss. 

I'm thinking I might go for a shot at the VRAID from hobbes.  I did mirror drives many years ago in OS/2, and back of the my mind I feel like I didn't need 3rd party drivers for it, but it was many years ago, and I'm thinking I'm mistaken at this point.

And yes, I know I could load another OS and be on my way, but I've been running OS/2 since the 2.1 days, and really don't want to drink the kool aide after so many years with my favorite OS.

Thanks for the reply.

-David

Greggory Shaw

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Re: RAID 1/Mirror under OS/2
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2017, 11:15:03 pm »
     > Massimo report that this card works !
    >
    > LSI LOGIC SATA 150-6 RAID Card Six-port MegaRAID SATA (with cables) NEW IN BOX $70


I had this setup working, you should be able to find one from eBAy (new $70-90) ! And don't get cheap, buy a new one (it's your backups) !
« Last Edit: March 17, 2017, 11:20:18 pm by Greggory Shaw »

Greggory Shaw

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Re: RAID 1/Mirror under OS/2
« Reply #4 on: March 18, 2017, 12:10:09 am »
...

And if not in hardware, what are the thoughts of mirroring in the OS?  I see over on hobbes there is a RAID driver, VRAID 2.3.  Does anyone have experience with that or other software implementations to mirror drives they would recommend?

Thanks!

Sure easy & timed backups too.

RsyncBackup/2 - easy way to setup Rsync v3.09 for OS/2.

http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,1119.0.html

ivan

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Re: RAID 1/Mirror under OS/2
« Reply #5 on: March 18, 2017, 12:41:41 am »
Hi David,

We are looking at the Arech ARC-1883i card and the LSI 9380-8e card (between 600 to 800 USD).  These are SAS controllers but can be used SATA disks if you are prepared to lose a little performance.

The Arech card has the advantage that there is a web based UI for setup and control.  The LSI requires either win or linux to be able to use the supplied setup software (these can be run in a VM and are only used to setup the RAID type and how the on card memory is allocated).

Dave Yeo

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Re: RAID 1/Mirror under OS/2
« Reply #6 on: March 18, 2017, 01:56:28 am »
Hi David, if you're only thinking about backups, be aware that a mirror is not the safest, your power supply goes and takes out both disks is one common scenario, same with a lightning strike.
Safest is just to get a USB enclosure/hard disk and use rsync every night to keep them in sync. Even better have 2 or 3 and rotate them, even keeping one off site.

emerald

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Re: RAID 1/Mirror under OS/2
« Reply #7 on: March 18, 2017, 03:10:28 pm »
Thanks everyone for the replies.  They are all helpful.   It looks like either one of the controllers might be the way to go and/or a combination of RsyncBackup/2.   My goal is to have the running data drives mirrored, and then I also have another disk internally in the server to backup the mirror to.  This won't help if I get the dreaded power zap as mentioned, so I do some snapshots to another PC on my network to have another box with the data on it.  I am close to 2 TB of data, so getting a full backup in a timely fashion is a challenge, and I don't think USB 2.0 will ever complete in a reasonable period of time.  I will revisit updating my USB drivers and seeing how throughput is, but sadly, I've never had good luck moving any quantity of data to a USB device under OS/2.  I'm probably better pulling to a USB drive hanging of a PC running Windows that's on my network.  I dug in a little deeper on the VRAID that's on hobbes, and at least on BMT's site, it is listed as no longer available to register, so this might be a "no-go" option.   The pair of disks I'm using are Hitachi HUA723020ALA641 - enterprise class 7200RPM/6Gb/2 million hour MTBF - data sheet here for anyone interested:  https://www.hgst.com/company/resources/ultrastar-7k3000-data-sheet.  I'd like to get as much performance out of them as possible, so a modern controller or using the motherboard's own interface is attractive.  Given the quantity of data and the controllers etc., rysnc may be the best route, since I can get my baseline and then let it just transfer the differential changes.  Looks like I have a busy weekend ahead.

Thanks again for the input.

« Last Edit: March 18, 2017, 03:15:34 pm by David A »

Dave Yeo

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Re: RAID 1/Mirror under OS/2
« Reply #8 on: March 18, 2017, 06:39:12 pm »
Another option for backups is a eSATA connection, as fast as internal but on OS/2, no eject/unmount so you have to shutdown to mount and unmount.

ivan

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Re: RAID 1/Mirror under OS/2
« Reply #9 on: March 18, 2017, 07:23:00 pm »
If you are prepared to use external storage you could do what we do in the service department, RSYNC the daily work over to a couple of D-Link NAS boxes with 3TB drives setup as RAID 1 in each.  They are backed up weekly to our HP storage array again using RSYNC.

I have the same D-Link backup at home and the cheap and cheerful NAS boxes have been working away without problems for the last 4 years. I do have them hooked up to a UPS, a hold over from when the electric supply wasn't as good as it is since they re cabled the village.