Andreas Sachs put forth on 5/7/2010 1:50 AM: > Hi, > i created a raid-5 array with a LSI MegaRaid 150-6 controller (i used 4 sata > drives). Is it possible to use the array without the hardware raid controller > with linux software raid/ mdadm?
No, this is not possible. Did your MegaRAID card die? If so, you should be able to purchase a new (I noticed the 150 is past EOL) similar MegaRAID card, drop it in, enter its BIOS, and have it scan the drives for the RAID configuration, then save it, and reboot. (Link to a new in box LSI 150-6 on Ebay is below) This is precisely why American Megatrend's RAID division (now a division of LSI) implemented writing the RAID configuration to the disks themselves instead of only keeping it in nvram on the card. This facilitates replacing a failed controller card without having to restore from tape or other backup media. The SCSI AMI MegaRAID cards from the late 1990s had this feature (I still use one of them, a three channel model 428). But IIRC back then you had to replace the failed card with an identical model. Today, I'm pretty sure you can use any card in the series which has the same basic BIOS. It doesn't have to be the exact BIOS rev, but it has to be the same BIOS code family IIRC. Call LSI and tell them what's up. They should be able to assist you with getting the correct controller to replace yours and get your array going again without needing to restore from tape. If you're just wanting to go to software RAID after a controller failure, you have no choice but to connect all the drives to a standard SATA controller, wipe the drives, then partition them or setup LVM groups, then use mdadm to create a new array. Then you'll need to restore from tape or other media if you have backups. If you have no backups, for all practical purposes, your data is lost. If you have a few tens of thousands of dollars, I'm sure some of the data recovery companies could correctly reassemble the data. But if you have such financial resources, you'd just buy another LSI card and get back up and running with little pain or cash outlay. Here's a new in box LSI 150-6 with cables, identical to your card, on Ebay for $100 USD Buy It Now. Sale ends in 5 days. http://cgi.ebay.com/LSI-MegaRAID-SATA-150-6-RAID-Card-1506064-w-cables-/220600932830?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item335cd719de Ships to: United States, Europe, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Japan I'm assuming you're in Germany. The card is in Utah, USA. Might take a few days to get to you. Once it does, plug it in, scan the disks for the previous RAID configuration, save it, boot up, done. It _should_ be that simple. I hope I've been able to help you in one way or another Andreas. Good luck. -- Stan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4be3d416.7060...@hardwarefreak.com