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2xSSD raid0 linux mint install... mdadm...


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Posted (edited)

ill start off by saying, i already have plans for a network backup solution...

i have been searching for instructions on installing linux mint on 2 ssd's in a raid0 configuration. there is not much support out there for this type of install... i have been searching the mint forums for a collection of related tutorials.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=127676&f=90#p695514

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=103247#p585787

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=210439

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=206359#p1074255

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=138044&p=981686&hilit=17+raid0+mdadm#p735417

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=210439

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=210439&p=1109996#p1109996

this one here is uptodate, but no information on preparing the hard drives...

im currently on a live USB stick, of mint 17.2... im having troubles preparing my partitions... im not sure exaclty how they should look before you start the installer...

Edited by i8igmac
Posted (edited)

Speaking from rrgular Ubunty, as soon as you divert from a 'normal' setup, you're on your own.

Here's the deal: your bootloader can't start from RAID. So you need a non-RAID /boot partition. Everything else can be set up any way you want. Also note that regular Ubuntu puts a fairly significant amount of data there, so go with about 150MB.

Because my situation was RAID10 with spinning rust I wanted all partitions to be of identical size, so I partitioned all 4 drives with 1 150mb partition and the rest as a RAID partition. I did this from the live USB thing. I also installed mdadm since by default Ubuntu doesn't contain it.

Once mdadm was installed I created the array (mdadm --create [parameters....] using an xterm where you've already run 'sudo su -' and keep this around for the duration) as /dev/md0. I then started the Ubuntu installer and took a manual approach. With the raid device active you *cannot* change the partition table, so only set the / device as the RAID device and nothing else. Feel free to format though. Even swap and such - DON'T set this up from the installer because that will rewrite the partition table which kills the assembled array. Follow the installer until it goes to install the bootloader. This will fail miserably.

From that xterm you retained from creating the array, go to /.

mount /dev/md0 /target
cd /target
for dir in sys proc dev
do mount -o bind /$dir $dir
done
cp /etc/resolv.conf etc
chroot /target /bin/bash
apt-get install mdadm
ps -ef | grep mdadm
kill -9 (the highest-numbered of the 2 --monitor processes)
mount /dev/$bootdevice /mnt
cd /boot
mv * /mnt
grub-install /dev/$bootdevice
umount proc sys dev mnt
exit
cd /
umount /target
reboot

That should be it. Note that bootdevice is the *disk*, not the partition.

Holler when you run into probs.

Edited by cooper
Posted

Thank you for your help. boots up in 3 seconds lol

There was a strugle with people instructing me to use uefi boot loaders... I guess efi is going to take over legacy?

First time experience with gdisk... and the partition structure looks like this.

/dev/sda1 256mb. EFOO (efi file system)

/dev/sda2 120gigs. FD00 (linux raid)

/dev/sdb1 256mb EF02 (bios boot system)

/dev/sdb2 120gigs FD00 (linux raid)

So, when my attempts with efi boot loader fail, I installed grub on sdb1 and here I am...

I still have sda1 available for efi boot loader, is it to late to give this a shot?

Posted

Doesn't sound like it's too late for this, but the main question becomes what do you hope to achieve by going that route, which you haven't achieved already? Basically, what's the point?

Posted

i guess it dont matter... grub>efi

i have just purchased four 2TB 5400rpm drives for my file server. ill soon implament raid 10 on my file server.

the money i spent on the drives has me broke, the low powered file server is on hold for a while.

im also looking into rysnc as a network backup solution... seems simple enough...

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