Raid 1 in HPE Gen10

[Robert Moskowitz]

Install failed.  I probably tried too much.

Ubuntu 24 seems to give everything needed for software Raid install.  
But I went and set up the 2nd pair of drives as a 2nd Raid group and set 
that up with an LVM partition.  My bad.

This time, I think I have it "figured" out how to set up just the first 
2 drives as a raid group.  Set up an LVM on it, then EXT4 for /.

"Later", I can set up another partition in the LVM for all the backups I 
will be rsyncing over at nights.  Then setup the 2nd pair of drives.

Perhaps.  Here goes.

On 6/19/25 8:20 AM, Robert Moskowitz via ubuntu-users wrote:
>
>
> On 6/19/25 7:48 AM, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
>> Robert Moskowitz via ubuntu-users writes:
>>
>>> I have an HPE Gen 10 with 4 4TB drives that has been sitting for 2 
>>> years for me to figure out how to get RAID working.
>>>
>>> Now that I am working with Ubuntu, it almost makes sense, but I am 
>>> not there.  Yet.
>>>
>>> Seems I have to go into custom setup for the drives.
>>>
>>> So far I have only taken 2 drives into a RAID1 config and the other 
>>> two into an LVM
>>>
>>> Once I selected Raid and put the two drives in it, I was only 
>>> offered formatting as EXT4 for /
>>>
>>> I am being told I need a boot partition.  Of course.
>>>
>>> So is there any decent guide for this?
>>
>> It is certainly possible because I have done this exact same thing, 
>> but using mdraid rather than any hardware-based RAID. A lot of ink 
>> has been spilled about this, over the years, but the capsule summary 
>> is that mdraid over the long term will fare better. You can pull the 
>> disks and drop them into another box and it'll just work, for 
>> example. You can't do this with hardware RAID, without also 
>> installing identical hardware, too. And if your hardware RAID card 
>> gives up the magic smoke you're SOL, unti you can find an identical 
>> replacement.
>
> I like the sound of this.  I have a long history of pulling a drive 
> out of one box and placing it another and getting on with life. Also 
> allowed me to upgrade to better processor/more memory without 
> rebuilding the drive.
>
>>
>> I basically followed this:
>>
>> https://askubuntu.com/questions/1299978/
>
> Maybe this will explain opening up terminal...
>
>>
>> but skipped some of the fluff up front. The capsule summary is:
>>
>> 1) Boot the installer, open a terminal shell
>>
>> 2) apt update, apt install mdadm
>
> where in the installer do you get the option to open a shell?
>
>
> and it seems that the Ubuntu 24 is offering me some tools for setting 
> up the RAID.
>
>>
>> 3) Use fdisk (or sgdisk) to partition both drives, then use mdadm to 
>> assemble them into RAID arrays.
>
> How long has it been since I used fdisk for this?  I long ago switched 
> to parted.  But even that I have to read my crib notes.
>
>> This is where I wish I've done something different than the guide, 
>> which basically tells you that the EFI boot partition is SOL, as far 
>> as mdraid goes, and gives you marching orders to just create a 
>> non-RAID partition on both disks, use the one on the boot drive for 
>> the UEFI partition, set up some automation to dd it to the other 
>> drive's partition, and use efibootmgr to include both disks as 
>> bootable devices.
>>
>> Since then, I've learned that it should be possible to use mdraid for 
>> the EFI boot partition by formatting it as mdraid 1.0 instead of 
>> mdraid 1.1 (still need to fiddle with efibootmgr). It just so happens 
>> that this is exactly the situation on my other box running Fedora, 
>> which has no issues with the efi boot partition on mdraid (Fedora's 
>> installer directly supported installation to mdraid for a very long 
>> time, at least a decade). I'll try that next time.
>
> This box, and many of its ilk has an internal slot for USB or SD 
> device where you can place the boot loader.  I figure that after each 
> new kernel I can dd that partition to a file on the RAID HD for safe 
> keeping.
>
>>
>> 3) Start the ubuntu installer. It'll be slightly confused and list 
>> both the physical partitions and the RAID partition together, as 
>> installation targets. Be sure to select the right partitions 
>> (disclaimer, this was the story in Ubuntu 20, current experience 
>> might vary).
>
> Thank you for sharing your experiences.  I will definitely check out 
> that guide.
>
>>
>>
>
>