[SOLVED] Fix Hardware RAID after Removing volumes ?

[GusBricker]

Hi guys,

I'm running freenas 7.2 with an Areca 1260ml raid card.
Previously, I had two volumes set up. One raid 5 volume 6tb and another raid 6 volume 6tb as well. I deleted and removed the raid 5 volume from freenas, then removed the raid set in the raid card too.

I then restarted the nas and everything went nuts. It seems because I've removed the first volume (raid 5), it's now gotten confused because the second volume (raid 6) is where the first one is.

My question is, how do I fix this? Should I remove the mount point and the volume in disk>management and add it again? If I do, are there any gotchas I need to watch out for, as the volume has some important data on it that I don't want to loose.

Does selecting a preformatted file system under disk management actually do any formatting?

Thanks in advance,
Cheers

[raulfg3]

Does selecting a preformatted file system under disk management actually do any formatting?

no, preformatted is designed to do not alter the data disk, only to inform Nas4free what FS have the disk.

My question is, how do I fix this? Should I remove the mount point and the volume in disk>management and add it again? If I do, are there any gotchas I need to watch out for, as the volume has some important data on it that I don't want to loose.

sorry , no experience on Hardware/software raid, but always is a good design/idea to have a backup of important files.

Please consider to migrate to ZFS, because RAID is considered obsolete, and have a lot of problems.

please read the wiki, there are a lot of usefull info about raid.

[GusBricker]

Okay ill try add it as a preformatted drive.

Please consider to migrate to ZFS, because RAID is considered obsolete, and have a lot of problems.

please read the wiki, there are a lot of usefull info about raid.

Also im pretty sure that RAID isnt obsolete... lol i find that statement to be massively exaggerated... ZFS is great and all, but its also pretty slow because its massively software based...

[GusBricker]

Problem im having is, for some reason the raid volume wont show up anymore... It shows as NA. Ive attached a screen shot.

Screen Shot 2012-09-23 at 5.59.21 PM.png

The RAID volume appears to be in perfectly normal condition when i check the RAID bios. Am i missing something? Can i mount it via the command line?

[raulfg3]

Also im pretty sure that RAID isnt obsolete

YES, perhaps obsolete is not the word, but ZFS have all adventages of RAID plus more roughtness.

ZFS is great and all, but its also pretty slow because its massively software based...

YES, is software based, but is faster than hardware RAID today, please google a bit

http://storagemojo.com/2006/08/15/zfs-p ... ware-raid/

and revise this forum about Raid5 troubles and ZFS troubles.

My data has survive 2 motherboards and 2 SATA controllers, i do not lose data, only to import zpool , i want to see the same if you need to change your hardware RAID contrller due a fail/broken hardware.

PD: Perhaps this post helps you, not sure: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=1184&p=4406

[GusBricker]

Thanks raulfg3 for the help. I agree ZFS is pretty good, honestly if i was going to re-do my system i would have done it using ZFS but at the time when i set this server up. It wasn't as big as it is now.

Im thinking maybe the best idea is to re-install NAS4Free? Is it hard to update it from Freenas 7.2 to latest NAS4Free? Or can i just install NAS4Free and import my config?

[shakky4711]

Hello,

I then restarted the nas and everything went nuts. It seems because I've removed the first volume (raid 5), it's now gotten confused because the second volume (raid 6) is where the first one is.
My question is, how do I fix this?

I have had a similar issue in the past with an Adaptec 2100. Because you deleted the first array (da1 for example), the remaining second one (da2 for example) is now reported as da1 to the operating system. So all setting which pointed to the mountpoint from da2 fail now.

Dirty way, when the array shows up as da(x) pluh in a usb pendrive, this should replace the missing array when it is identified on bootup before the raid array.

Second and better solution is to remove all services from the previous mountpoint, delete the two mountpints from both arrays, delete both arrays from the harddisk section and setup new with the current array. If it fails (because NAS4Free still has some entries about the missing array but you have no chance to remove because it shows up nowhere), save your config and reset to factory settings. Then start from scratch, sometimes you reach the goal quicker by setup from zero than to repair/fix issues.

BTW: I installed latest 9.1.0.1.306 on my testing system, some problems I have had are fixed with this release, so generally a good idea to upgrade, could solve some issues without interaction

Shakky

XX EDIT XX
Sorry, I saw too late you are still running FreeNAS 0.7, I can recommend to switch to NAS4Free, runs on machines P3-500 256MB RAM up to my E350 with 8GB without any issues. In theory the latest releases should recode the FreeNAS config, but I recommend to setup from scratch, especially when you have problems with the current setting it makes no sense to transfer problems to the new system.

[GusBricker]

Wow really appreciate the detailed reply Shakky!

I had a feeling it was because the drive got reallocated to a different position in the device list (dont know the technical name). Im thinking that upgrading to NAS4Free latest version is the best idea at the moment, id rather upgrade anyway because apparently FreeNAS 0.7 has alot of issues.

Upgrading should be straight forward i think, just re-install and then re-add my drives... then reconfigure system.

[GusBricker]

Yayy, got it all working now .

Did what you said shakky, started again from scratch with latest version of NAS4Free and remounted my drives. Worked brilliantly!! Didnt loose any data either, all worked well.

I followed this guys guide to prevent having to use a CD first off, basically run a virtual machine and install NAS4Free directly to the usb from VMware Fusion. http://www.fixtheexchange.com/how-insta ... -8-usb-key.

Again, thanks for the help Shakky and Raul.