harddisk Integrity Monitor

J

jaapvstr

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Joined
Sep 15, 2006
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Is there a monitor program for checking harddisk integrity? I recently installed a server with raid 1 system, but not much use of it when i don't get to know when either of the harddisks breaks down.
 
First I don't know a lot about raid. I only know a little about software raid. You have not told us whether it is software raid or hardware raid. I believe there is hardware raid software that probably comes with the raid controller that will let you know when a disk gets kicked out. Somebody who knows something about hardware raid can comment on that.

For software raid mdadm will alert you if you set it up. Also for software raid from the command line you can:

Code: 
cat /proc/mdstat

to check the current status.
 
It's a build-in raid controller in the mainboard. So it uses up the normal processor, but it's still hardware raid.
 
It's a build-in raid controller in the mainboard.
Click to expand...

So the board manufacturer should have software to monitor it.

Did you try cat /proc/mdstat?
 
This is what i get when i cat /proc/mdstat :

Personalities :
unused devices: <none>
 
Actually, if it's a builtin RAID controller in the motherboard it's probably what many of us call FRAID.

Which means it's really software RAID, run by a special chip, instead of by the linux kernel. Linux has no generic software to run proprietary chips. Ask the MB manufacturer for what you need.

Jeff
 
FRAID as in fake-raid?

Hmm, seems like i need to contact the manufacturer then. Thanks. Perhaps it would be easier next time to just setup software raid.
 
Opinions seem to be split on which one is better so the way I see it is the differences must be very minor. With software raid I don't have to buy an extra pci card so that is what I go with and I am just doing raid1. I think if you are doing some of the others then hardware raid is better. But this is just my really uninformed opinion.
 
Floyd,

FRAID (fake raid) is really a marketing gimick; it has all the disadvantages of software RAID, and all of the disadvantages and NONE of the advantages of hardware RAID. We use software RAID and that way we get to use standard linux commands for monitoring, rebuilding, etc.

Jeff
 
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