NTFS RAID in Linux?

AWBbox

AWBbox

AWBbox

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I recently started making the move from Windows to Linux, it's something I've been meaning to do for a while really. There are still files and settings that I need to move across etc but more importantly I want my hardware (striped) raid array that is formatted as NTFS to be read in Linux. Try as I might I just can't mount the damn volume I really really don't want to re-format it as there's so much data on there it would take many days to move out and back again. My distro is Sabayon x64 3.4e if it makes a difference.

Appreciate your help. :)
 
I dunno about your distro, im using ubuntu, and have only been playing with linux for just over a year, so don't believe everything (or anything) I say.

Anyway you should be able to mount your drive so you can read information from it. But I am pretty sure linux can't right to NTFS hard drives.

Best bet would be to ask at your distro's forum and im sure there will be an instant reply since its common thing for people to want to do since a lot of people are moving from windows to linux.
 
Unless you have a very old kernel, you should be able to read the drive if it's hardware striped - assuming that there's support for your raid card...

As mattgaunt suggests, get on the distribution's forums and see if there's anything there - also try googling for an answer - quite often you'll find information in another distro's forum which will be useful to you!
 
'real' hardware RAID will show up as SCSI disks (/dev/sd*)

The vast majority of onboard RAID chipsets are software-RAID, for which 'dmraid -ay' will detect and create device mapper nodes for the majority of them. Run that and it should make some device names in /dev/mapper/ corresponding to your RAID logical volumes and partitions, you can then mount them where you want.

The in-kernel NTFS support is reliable only for reading NTFS, to write/modify NTFS, you'll need the ntfs-3g package.
 
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matja said:
'real' hardware RAID will show up as SCSI disks (/dev/sd*)
Click to expand...
assuming that his raid card is recognised and has drivers for...
matja said:
The vast majority of onboard RAID chipsets are software-RAID
Click to expand...
Realistically, all onboard RAID is based in firmware (not software). However, th op said nothing about on-board. A lot of raid cards also are firmware based - unless you've spent a lot of money on the card and it has a dedicated RAID chip - then it is true hardware raid.
matja said:
for which 'dmraid -ay' will detect and create device mapper nodes for the majority of them. Run that and it should make some device names in /dev/mapper/ corresponding to your RAID logical volumes and partitions, you can then mount them where you want.
Click to expand...
This will probably work - assuming that the stripe is on the same controller - if it is on a new model of controller, let alone a new brand of controller...
matja said:
The in-kernel NTFS support is reliable only for reading NTFS, to write/modify NTFS, you'll need the ntfs-3g package.
Click to expand...
The built in NTFS write support is reliable, however, the file has to be exactly the same size (thus making it almost completely useless!!) - however, the NTFS-3g project is still not reliable enough for production (IMHO) - however, it is getting there read/write performance for a fuse is fantastic.
 
=walls= said:
assuming that his raid card is recognised and has drivers for...

Realistically, all onboard RAID is based in firmware (not software). However, th op said nothing about on-board. A lot of raid cards also are firmware based - unless you've spent a lot of money on the card and it has a dedicated RAID chip - then it is true hardware raid.
Click to expand...

I brought the topic up because the OP mentioned hardware RAID, however most people would regard an onboard RAID chipset or a cheap Highpoint card as 'hardware RAID', when it is simply nothing more than a PCI SATA controller with an option ROM capable of understanding the on-disk (possibly proprietry) RAID metadata format and providing the int 13h services necessary for a real-mode bootloader to load the kernel of an OS. In such cases the actual 'RAID' functionality is provided by specific OS drivers - in the case of Windows, or base SATA drivers plus a RAID/multi-device framework such as device-mapper or md in Linux 2.6 kernels, vinum in FreeBSD, etc - which all run on the host CPU rather than the RAID card. In those cases, the OP would need additional software to recognise the logical volumes, rather than the kernel simply showing them as hardware disks.
 
Last edited:
matja said:
'real' hardware RAID will show up as SCSI disks (/dev/sd*)

The vast majority of onboard RAID chipsets are software-RAID, for which 'dmraid -ay' will detect and create device mapper nodes for the majority of them. Run that and it should make some device names in /dev/mapper/ corresponding to your RAID logical volumes and partitions, you can then mount them where you want.

The in-kernel NTFS support is reliable only for reading NTFS, to write/modify NTFS, you'll need the ntfs-3g package.
Click to expand...
dmraid -ay comes up with command not found. The Sabayon forums are down for upgrade and the live help irc channel is wisper quiet. I'm pretty stuck with this still. I'd googled long and hard before posting here but nothing I found has worked yet.
 
make sure your booting your kernel with the 'dodmraid' option and that dmraid support is compiled into your kernel. Also you need the 'device-mapper' program.
If everything works you should see your raid drive (and partitions) show up in /dev/mapper.
Just make sure you only ever access the disks through /dev/mapper and not /dev/sda... etc. Linux will still see the individual disks so be careful :)

If your still having trouble try taking a look at this page: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Gentoo_Install_on_Bios_(Onboard)_RAID

It might be for gentoo but it may help you understand how to get everything working.
 
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