[mythtv-users] My MythTV system is a time machine

[Kevon]

On 03/04/2011 07:48 PM, Jean-Yves Avenard wrote:
> Hi
> 
> On 5 March 2011 00:14, Eric Sharkey <eric at lisaneric.org> wrote:
> 
> I bought a rocketraid controller ; wanted to use it as a plain SATA
> interface so I put all disks as JBOD.
> 
> Turned out, the disks were unusable without the rocketraid.
> 
> Same thing with RAID1; it partitioned the drive in such a way that
> they would appear empty if connected to a plain SATA controller.
> 
> So hardware RAID aren't that much better either.
> 
> md on Linux has proven to be extremely reliable, recovering data in a
> RAID5 array, even after 2 drives got disconnected.

The RocketRaids can be a pain in the ass because they add proprietary
partition information to the disk (as with most hardware raid) which
makes the disks unusable without the RAID card.

Fortunately there is a work around for the RocketRaid which will work
even with your existing RAID array.
For your RAID5 setup:
1. Fail and remove one of the disk from the RAID
2. Remove the failed disk from the RocketRaid and connect it to
motherboard SATA port.
3. Create single partition using the entire disk (or however you want to
partition the disk). Ensure the partition is >= the smallest disk in
your array.
4. Reconnect the disk to the RocketRaid. The disk will show up as
"Legacy" (or something to that effect) on the RocketRaid BIOS.
5. Once your system boots the disk will be passed through as a regular
SATA drive sans the RocketRaid data.
6. Add the disk back to your RAID5 and wait for it to rebuild
7. Rinse and repeat with remaining disks in the array

I got annoyed with unplugging the drives, creating a partition and
rebooting my NAS just to add a disk to the array so I purchased USB SATA
docking station. Now I no longer have to schedule a new drive addition
outside Myth recording window.