linux reboot when mount raid controller drivers

alexribeirodesa · February 14, 2020

Hello,

I've got an old dell poweredge 2950 with two xeon processors and 16gb ram, a raid controller (perc 5i) with 6 driver slots and two internal sata, but I have some issues with it...

Idea, use a small ssd drive inside the computer using one of the sata and use the slots to create a nice NAS for my work stuff, steam library and plex...

I install Linux os (tested with Ubuntu (tested from version 16 to 20 both desktop and server) and centos 7 with same results), it works fine, I can mount all my raid devices manually by command with no problem, but, when I try to mount it using the fstab it didnt boot anymore, with no error, nothing, just reset... But, when I remove from fstab it works again...

So, when it boot and manually mount works, the idea was, create a shell script and run after the boot, so created the sh works when I use inside the console, but, same issues, no error, just reset...

BUT, now the plot twist, when I install the os using a drive from the raid controller it works...

Some theories, any conflict between raid and sata, but didn't have found anything online about it...

What I will try now, just to confirm the theorie, I'll install the os inside a USB drive and I really think it will work, it will take some more time on boot but, it isn't a problem...

My question is, someone ever had any problem like this before??

If the usb works its fine to run a nas with a usb drive for boot?? Freenas uses and I think it's a good idea, think about it, it's really easy to backup the image and restore when something go wrong (os update as example) and if corrupt, just restore the image in another drive... My idea is correct or it's bullshit??

My last option is boot with the ssd inside the raid controller and lose one slot...

Thanks ^^

Dutch_Master · February 14, 2020

This should be in the Linux section of the forum, but never mind.

Running an OS from an SD card is actually not a good idea. It'll work, but you'll quickly run into some (serious) issues, the least of which is read/write speeds. SD cards are notorious for their slow transfer speeds. But you'll also run into the design issue of SD cards and that's the limited amount of write cycles. After a certain number, writing to the SD card may corrupt your data as the storage cells have worn out and there's no space left for this level-wearing stuff all solid state storage devices do. Simply put, unless your OS is tweaked to minimise IO interaction with the SD card memory cells, it'll destroy said SD card in fairly short order.

Now, most server mainboards have a SATA_DOM port, which is a SATA port with some extra power supply pins to accept a D-O-M (disk-on-module) that is designed to hold an OS. These can be had for not a lot of money, although they don't have a huge amount of capacity (mostly 16-32GB).

In the mean time, post the relevant lines from fstab when you tried mounting it that way, it needs a very specific syntax to work correctly.

alexribeirodesa · February 15, 2020

Thanks for the reply,

Yes, that can be a issue when using a USB drive for boot...

About the SATA_DOM, no, this is standard SATA...

I really don't know if this question is linux or hardware issue, as one os my theorie is the hardware conflict between the raid controller and the sata :-/

Anyway, I'll try to create a usb for boot tomorrow, just to test and confirm if the isses is hardware (conflict, old firmware or whatever) or software (os, missing drive or doing something wrong)

Thanks again :)

alexribeirodesa · February 17, 2020

my quest continues, and now I think I have isolated the issue, I think the problem is in two raid0 drives that I use just for my steam library, when I didn't mount these drives everything works with no issue... and make sense, the problem is when I mount the drivers and these are old hdd that I used to learn how raid work...