On 2/23/23 11:05, Tim Woodall wrote:
On Wed, 22 Feb 2023, Nicolas George wrote:
Is there a solution to have a whole-disk RAID (software, mdadm) that is
also partitioned in GPT and bootable in UEFI?
I've wanted this ...
I think only hardware raid where the bios thinks it's a single disk ...
My wants and thinking are the same. I can and do FOSS RAID for data
disks, but I am baffled for boot disks.
I did desktop motherboard simple hardware RAID years ago (0, 1, 10,
JBOD; Intel Matrix Storage Technology?). It was configured via BIOS
Setup. I seem to recall that both Windows and Linux saw the RAID as a
single SATA HDD. Under Windows, you could download an Intel driver and
controller app to configure and/or monitor the RAID. I do not recall a
driver and app for Linux.
I believe my newer motherboards/ computers also include simple hardware
RAID. The current Intel solution is Rapid Storage Technology. I
believe this is enabled on my Dells via UEFI Setup -> Settings -> System
Configuration -> SATA Operation -> "RAID On", but I have not attempted
to build a RAID. (Do I need the Windows driver and app?) I have
discovered that Linux cannot see the disks unless the setting is changed
to "AHCI" (?), and am curious why.
I have some 2-port SATA HBA's and believe they also support simple
hardware RAID. I assume they have a BIOS extension/ POST hotkey
configuration utility, with drivers and apps for Windows. I have used
them in BIOS computers back in the day and in UEFI computers with
backwards compatibility, but I do not know if they would work in the
newest UEFI-only computers; especially with Secure Boot.
Hardware is again becoming a walled garden more so every day; especially
with Windows 11, TPM 2, and whatever Apple does. I look forward to open
source hardware, such as RISC-V.
David
