This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Marc Logemann. Original Post: 3Ware 9650SE Raid on Debian Feed Title: Logemann Blog Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LogemannBlog Feed Description: Marc Logemann's thoughts on java and other stuff Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Marc Logemann Latest Posts From Logemann Blog

I am feeling like a 12 year old sitting the first time in front of a computer. The only difference is that its not about a computer per se but about installing a 9650-SE raid controller on debian etch. Yesterday it started with my false assumptions by thinking that with the latest and greated debian distro, a raid card by one of the largest manufacturers should be detected out of the box. Of course that wasnt the case. Then i started building a new kernel because i heard that with 2.6.20, the 3ware driver is in and cause i have never done this before, it took me quite some time gathering all the informations. During kernel building which is a major pain because even with “make oldconfig” you get thousands of questions if hardware driver A (and B and C…) should go in or not, i found out that 3ware is supplying a customized debian etch installer as iso file with the raid card support built in. So i stopped the kernel building and went with the custom installer.

Now the story would have been over if i wouldnt have been thinking that its better to disable write caching because i dont have a battery backup unit (bbu) on the controller. That little setting caused so much trouble…. I run the debian installer at least 3 times and always wondered why the partitioning of the raid harddisks takes forever. The debian installer percentage bar just stayed at 33% all the time and since it starts with 33%, it looked like that it broke somewhere. Then i installed the OS on one of the none raid drivers, just to have a running installation and to see whats really happening in the installer. So i checked the internet for informations how to partition and how to create a filesystem by hand. Then after knowing cfdisk and mke2fs, i partitioned the raid array by hand, which was no problem at all. Then i did mk2fs -j for creating ext3 on it and then i saw the problem. Writing 5000 inodes took endless. It was basically like counting 1….2…..3…..4. Again i phoned the US support and they told me that switching of write cache is crazy, i told them that i dont have a BBU  and i wanne be sure that data is in good hands :) But they said that it shouldnt be a problem, even without a bbu.

After switching on write caching, inode writing was much faster and knowing that it runs within 5 minutes, i could turn back to the 3ware debian installer to finally install the OS on the raid5 array. All in all this took me over 4 hours. Good that i am better in java than in linux administration :)