Intel Motherboard RAID 1 Question

[mda]

Hi all,

Planning to setup a motherboard RAID 1 for a lower end clone server.

A RAID card would be my first option but is locally is difficult to source for end users who don't buy brand name servers. I'm writing this option off, unfortunately. If I had the budget for a brand name server with warranty, I'd go with that.

My dumb (or perhaps bright) idea is to purchase a 2nd, identical motherboard so should the board fail, I can revive the RAID array inexpensively if things go wrong.
Grabbing a used 10th gen CPU further down the road if needed should be easy enough so I don't think I'll need to stock up on that.

As always, I do have backups (a local Synology, which backs up to another offsite Synology), but I am looking for uptime with this one.

Are there any potential issues with what I plan to do? Planning on running a 10400 with either B460s or H470s.

I plan to run some flavor of Linux (probably CentOS or OEL) or ESXi on this box.
I know Linux has mdadm but it won't work for boot partitions and this is precisely what I want fake RAID for.

For those that can chime in, how's AMD motherboard RAID nowadays?

TLDR: Any problems with moving Intel or AMD RAID1 to a 2nd identical board?

EDIT Ok was doing research into RAID cards online, seems generic or china clones arent so expensive after all...

Thanks!

 

[sinisterDei]

I think you're already figuring things out, but I wanted to point something out.

This:

motherboard RAID 1

Is incompatible with this:

I plan to run some flavor of Linux (probably CentOS or OEL) or ESXi on this box.

Most 'fake RAID' is Windows-specific; Linux distributions will typically 'see through' them to the source drives, and you'll reboot to find your RAID array has been 'separated'.

In addition to that, ESXi in particular will just flip you off and refuse to work.

If you want ESXi and want RAID, you *need* a hardware-based RAID card that has an ESXi compatible driver. I don't know what version of ESXi you're looking at, but as long as you're cool with 6.7 instead of 7.0 then you can grab an inexpensive 9265-8i and it'll work. There are probably other good options as well, I just happen to have used multiple of those 9265-8i cards and they have allw orked out well.

 

[MrGuvernment]

What is this for, work or personal?


Why not just do proper backups to your Synology so if your main system goes down, you can restore and be back up?

 

[Halon]

I think you're already figuring things out, but I wanted to point something out.

This:


Is incompatible with this:


Most 'fake RAID' is Windows-specific; Linux distributions will typically 'see through' them to the source drives, and you'll reboot to find your RAID array has been 'separated'.

In addition to that, ESXi in particular will just flip you off and refuse to work.

If you want ESXi and want RAID, you *need* a hardware-based RAID card that has an ESXi compatible driver. I don't know what version of ESXi you're looking at, but as long as you're cool with 6.7 instead of 7.0 then you can grab an inexpensive 9265-8i and it'll work. There are probably other good options as well, I just happen to have used multiple of those 9265-8i cards and they have allw orked out well.

Yep, sinisterDei is on the money. I just ran into the RAID issue he mentioned on a Nehalem SuperMicro board combo I snagged on eBay for a song. The only difference between the RAID and non-RAID Ubuntu installs I tried was the /dev path pointing to the drive. Windows just nodded and obediently did what it was told. For serious RAID work, do yourself a favor and grab a hardware controller. And keep making backups.

 

[lopoetve]

Yep. Or you can use LVM mirrors - Linux doesn't mind that, windows has no clue what it is... but since you COULD do it on partitions, there are ways to finagle it to work; ish. Sorta. ~shrug~

If you want true dual boot with RAID, you need a real controller.