I picked up an older Dell server for almost nothing. It has a raid controller in it. I installed 3 hard drives -- 2 HDDs for data (that I want to use in the RAID) and another smaller SSD for the OS. I needed to get a SATA cable for the SSD but its in. So the other day I booted up, with the CD OS and while I could configure BIOS, it only briefly showed the 2 HDDs (connected to the RAID hardware) but never went much further. I don't have the exact error message now (I can probably get it if needed) but some part of it said, "check cable." I'm wondering, which cable?

The only thing I've determined for sure is that the battery for the RAID card is not there. I have found one on Amazon and it is in my cart but I haven't ordered it. Is that the likely issue? I can't really find the necessary cable. Could this be a bad controller? If so, how do I deal with the hardware device that is connected to the back end of the drives and not connected to the motherboard itself?

I guess the main question is, how do I diagnose this issue?

It will POST;
It will go into BIOS config;
It goes into some other config I can't figure out what it is (doesn't appear to be RAID setup)
RAID setup is not in the BIOS setup -- i.e. the same place where you set boot order, time, etc.
Once it leaves setup, it waits for 30-45 seconds, then gives the error message, including "check cable." No OS boot from the CD, even though CD is first boot device.

What RAID level did you tell it to use? Did you go through a format operation on a LUN after setting up the array? It might be freaking out due to the third drive being a different size and type. Missing battery most likely not the source of your issue, those are usually for maintaining battery-backed memory for delayed writes in the event of power loss, etc.

I haven't got as far as the RAID level setup. In fact, I can't find it.

Which server model and what RAID controller? The older PERC controllers had their own option rom where you configured the RAID. Does the server have a backplane?

Also, what raid level are you intending to run? I assume 0? I'd run 5 for home use, but you need a minimum of 3 drives for that

Which server model and what RAID controller?
Dell Poweredge 840
Not sure on the controller. Will check and update.

The older PERC controllers had their own option rom where you configured the RAID. Does the server have a backplane?
Yes. I didn't know what that was until now, though.

Also, what raid level are you intending to run? I assume 0?
No, RAID 1.

Does the server have a management controller / DRAC installed? You might be able to check in there to see if there are any warnings or errors popping up for the RAID controller.

And I agree with akaggie05: the missing battery shouldn't really do more than maybe disable the disk write cache on the RAID controller, meaning you'll just lose any writes in-flight in the event the server loses power.

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Does the server have a management controller / DRAC installed?

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How would I find that out?

Can I just get a new RAID controller with a direct SATA connection into the drives? I don't care about it being hotswappable.

91AggieLawyer said:

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Which server model and what RAID controller?
Dell Poweredge 840
Not sure on the controller. Will check and update.

The older PERC controllers had their own option rom where you configured the RAID. Does the server have a backplane?
Yes. I didn't know what that was until now, though.

Also, what raid level are you intending to run? I assume 0?
No, RAID 1.

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PE840 should be a PERC 5/i if stock. On boot, you should see a prompt to hit Ctrl+R. That enters the PERC option rom. You can set up the raid array in there. If you aren't seeing the Ctrl+R prompt, you'll need to verify the raid controller. You can also use Dell's Array Manager software inside Windows to look at the controller. I believe LSI's software will also work with the PERC, but it's been a while since I worked with a 5/i.

Depending on what OS you're trying to load, you may need to load the PERC driver via F6 for it to see the drives. I think anything newer than Win7/Server 2008 should have the drivers built in.

You can run without the backplane but they generally don't have issues. If you have the drive caddys, I'd use it. Being able to hot swap is nice.

DRAC is the Dell Remote Access Card. It'll be in one of the PCI slots if you have one. They allow remote access to the box via IP.

Afternoon update: finally installing Ubuntu. RAID setup took a weird turn.

How do I known if RAID is actually enabled and data is being written to both disks?

91AggieLawyer said:

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Afternoon update: finally installing Ubuntu. RAID setup took a weird turn.

How do I known if RAID is actually enabled and data is being written to both disks?

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Did you verify whether you have a PERC and the Ctrl+R option rom on boot? If you don't, you likely setup software raid.

From the console, what is the output of df? Also try lspci | grep -i raid . That should list your raid controller. You may have to install lspci via sudo apt install lshw pciutils

txyaloo said:

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91AggieLawyer said:

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Afternoon update: finally installing Ubuntu. RAID setup took a weird turn.

How do I known if RAID is actually enabled and data is being written to both disks?

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Did you verify whether you have a PERC and the Ctrl+R option rom on boot? If you don't, you likely setup software raid.

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I believe it was PERC but there was never a Ctrl-R option. It was Control-C. It was the SAS setup utility. I played around with that and the only thing it wouldn't do was sync. That's why I'm not sure if data is being written to both drives.

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From the console, what is the output of df?

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Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
udev 1971080 0 1971080 0% /dev
tmpfs 403004 1212 401792 1% /run
/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv 122023568 5021332 110760752 5% /
tmpfs 2015016 0 2015016 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 2015016 0 2015016 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda2 999320 105992 824516 12% /boot
/dev/loop0 30720 30720 0 100% /snap/snapd/8542
/dev/loop1 56320 56320 0 100% /snap/core18/1880
/dev/loop2 73088 73088 0 100% /snap/lxd/16099
/dev/loop3 63232 63232 0 100% /snap/core20/904
/dev/loop4 279936 279936 0 100% /snap/nextcloud/26119
/dev/loop5 101632 101632 0 100% /snap/core/10859
/dev/loop6 39680 39680 0 100% /snap/postgresql10/47
tmpfs 403000 0 403000 0% /run/user/1000

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Also try lspci | grep -i raid . That should list your raid controller. You may have to install lspci via sudo apt install lshw pciutils

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Its installed but it doesn't list the controller.

Ctrl+C option rom means it's a SAS 5/ir. They're pretty limited cards. I'd consider buying a PERC5/6 off ebay. You can pick one up with a battery backup for ~$20 these days.

If you set up the array as IM, you should be good to go as RAID1. If you set it up as IS, that's RAID0.

User guide for the card is: https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_ser_stor_net/esuprt_dell_adapters/dell-sas-5ir-intgtd-and-adptr_user's%20guide_en-us.pdf Page 31 will walk you through creating the logical disk.

Based on your df output, it looks like Ubuntu is only seeing 1 disk - SDA1. I'd expect to see the RAID array to show up as well. If you do df -h it should show all the partitions in gigs. You can do the math that way to see if it adds up to the capacity of your SSD and your array.

There's a 250g SSD that is for the OS. The 2 HDDs are for data. It shows the SSD (sda) and the "virtual" HDD (sdb) -- correct size and all but it shows one. Is there a way Ubuntu can tell if hardware RAID is working?

What worries me is that under setup, the status says 0% Syncd and under drive status the second device is not syncd.

I'll review the doc you referenced. Thanks!

Just FYI: it took most of the spring due to interruptions (other urgent issues, work, personal stuff) but the server is up and going and (I believe) has the RAID 1 writing to both drives. I found and installed the PERC 6 card and I bought a new, thankfully quiet fan. That was the best part. The old fan sounded like a tornado was hitting the house.

I had some very minor issues with reinstallation of the OS and I was able to fairly easily navigate the samba install after a brief trial and error. House users and computers are seeing the server and reading/writing files to it. I've already got it loaded on my backup listing and will spend the next couple of weekends moving files from previous desktop hard drives to it. I will make tweaks as needed but its time to set this thing up the way its needed. I will also explore uses for it beyond file serving but that's its job for right now. Plus, I have a lot of work to do in other areas.

Thanks for all the help offered.