[CentOS] SuperMicro with LSI MegaRaid with Centos 6.0

[m.roth at 5-cent.us]

Gregory P. Ennis wrote:
> Gregory P. Ennis wrote:
>> Gregory P. Ennis wrote:
>>>
>>> I am trying to install a Centos 6.0 system on a SuperMicro with an LSI
>>> MegaRaid SCSI 320-2 controller.
>>>
>>> I had originally tried to install 6.4, but the 6.4 install DVD does not
>>> boot with this configuration.
>>> See : http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=5377
>>
>> I don't think you understand how to use it. First, BEFORE YOU TRY TO
>> INSTALL, use the firmware option while it's getting up - I think it's
>> <ctrl-R>, and create a logical drive, whatever RAID level you want, with
>> spares if it's not just RAID 1. Tell it to initialize (you can do a
>> quick
>> initialize). Then exit that, and it'll reboot, and Linux will see it
>> presented by the controller as one physical drive, and it should be
>> happy.
>>
>> Thank you for your response.  You are correct in that I may not
>> understand how to configure the LSI, but I had some help that was very
>> familiar with the LSI controller, but not familiar with Linux.
>>
>> Actually the configuration key is <ctrl-M> or <ctrl-H>, and we did
>> create a RAID Level 1; we also did an initialization that resulted in a
>> 100% a consistency check.
>>
>> After this, I expected to be able to start the 6.0 install, but when the
>> install disc got to the point of evaluating the hard discs it did not
>> find any, and gave me a prompt screen allowing me to select a driver
>> from a list, or add a driver via a floppy disc.  There were (maybe four)
>> LSI drivers in their list, and I tried all of them without success.
>>
>> Thanks again, any other ideas ??????
>
> If it's any help, some googling suggests that the 320 is what Dell
> rebranded as a PERC 4. It's kind of possible that there are 32-bit drivers
> for it - it does seem to be an old controller, though.
>
> The firmware for the controller *is* presenting one logical drive,
> correct?
>
> I also found this:
> <http://www.lsi.com/support/Pages/download-search.aspx>, so you might
> mouse around and see what you can find. I see it's on that page under
> legacy storage, btw.
>
>
> Thanks for your help.  I will take a look.  I was wondering if I may
> need to get a more recent controller?

Depends on your budget. If software raid works for you, Linux's own md
works very nicely. DON'T USE the Intel fakeraid. More money: a Dell PERC 6
or 7 - they're also rebranded LSI's, and work fine, and we use CentOS 5
and 6 almost exclusively, and have had no trouble.

      mark