Unable to create RAID 1

Hello,

I've just started experimenting with OMV5 and am planning to build my own NAS. I am using an old Dell CPU with 1x 240GB WD SSD connected to onboard SATA port running OMV5 OS. I then installed a PCIe RAID controller and hooked up 2x old SATA HDD (1TB and 500GB) connected to this RAID controller card to see if I can configure then as Mirror RAID. My problem is that I can see these these HDDs under "Disks" but when I go to RAID Management and try to create a "Mirror" configuration by adding both of these drives to it, I get a "Device or resource busy" error. I read in some article that secure wipe usually gets rid of this issue but unfortunately this didn't work for me. Any suggestion on troubleshooting this issue will be appreciated.

Error message when configuring RAID "Mirror" from OMV5 GUI:

error.txt

Other Debug outputs :

Blkid:

blkid.txt

fdisk:

fdisk.txt

mdadm detail:

mdadm detail.txt

mdadm:

mdadm.txt

mdstat:

mdstat.txt

The RAID card is a StarTech 4 Port PCIe SATA III Controller which has Marvell 88SE9230 Controller. Not sure if this is relevant but there are some bug reports online on compatibility of this controller with Linux kernel and had to install its own BIOS / Firmware that came with the card. So now when I boot up the computer, first the Dell BIOS comes up and if I press ctrl+M, it opens up another BIOS for RAID card which shows the two HDD attached to it. In my understanding this proves that the card and HDD are recognised by the Dell firmware.

The CPU I am using is a Dell OptiPlex 9010 (2013) model with 16GB RAM and intel i5 Processor. Not sure if this is relevant here but going through user manual of this CPU I noticed that Dell recommend maximum of 1 TB storage with this CPU model. I assume this limitation is for the onboard raid controller and with an external RAID PCIe card i should be able to expand this to 16TB which is the recommended limit for this RAID controller card.

Alright, after spending few hours with StarTech tech support I managed to get it working. Just for record, it was the stupid BIOS screen from Marvell. I had to add both HDD as "virtual disks" for the RAID card but instructions around it weren't clear. At one point of the process, I just had to press space key instead of enter and I was able to mount HDD as virtual disk on RAID card. Later I logged into OMV5 and configured them as "Mirror" and it worked. Phew!

Spent entire day debugging this and after reading post from geaves I was afraid I will have to invest more $$ for a new RAID card which would've defeated my plan of building a budget home NAS.

Now next step is to experiment with some "system failure scenarios" to understand how RAID handles drive failure and how such errors can be recovered from. Thanks geaves for your response.

Spoken too soon ! Although I was able to add HDD to RAID 0 config, when I went to File System to add a new folder It created the folder but when I click on "Mount", I get following error message:

Error #0:

OMV\ExecException: Failed to execute command 'export PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin; export LANG=C.UTF-8; omv-salt deploy run --no-color fstab 2>&1' with exit code '1': debian:

----------

ID: create_filesystem_mountpoint_1a70f282-ad92-45c0-a74b-9c67a8858578

Function: file.accumulated

Result: True

Comment: Accumulator create_filesystem_mountpoint_1a70f282-ad92-45c0-a74b-9c67a8858578 for file /etc/fstab was charged by text

Started: 10:49:29.251064

Duration: 0.667 ms

Changes:

----------

ID: mount_filesystem_mountpoint_1a70f282-ad92-45c0-a74b-9c67a8858578

Function: mount.mounted

Name: /srv/dev-disk-by-label-Data

Result: True

Comment:

Started: 10:49:29.252190

Duration: 354.949 ms

Changes:

----------

ID: create_filesystem_mountpoint_a624274a-3f40-4783-a262-1fee6d15e174

Function: file.accumulated

Result: True

Comment: Accumulator create_filesystem_mountpoint_a624274a-3f40-4783-a262-1fee6d15e174 for file /etc/fstab was charged by text

Started: 10:49:29.607538

Duration: 1.98 ms

Changes:

----------

ID: mount_filesystem_mountpoint_a624274a-3f40-4783-a262-1fee6d15e174

Function: mount.mounted

Name: /srv/dev-disk-by-label-sqldatabase

Result: False

Comment: mount: /srv/dev-disk-by-label-sqldatabase: mount(2) system call failed: Structure needs cleaning.

Started: 10:49:29.609711

Duration: 55.932 ms

Changes:

----------

ID: append_fstab_entries

Function: file.blockreplace

Name: /etc/fstab

Result: True

Comment: No changes needed to be made

Started: 10:49:29.667477

Duration: 6.724 ms

Changes:

Summary for debian

------------

Succeeded: 4

Failed: 1

------------

Total states run: 5

Total run time: 420.252 ms in /usr/share/php/openmediavault/system/process.inc:182

Stack trace:

#0 /usr/share/php/openmediavault/engine/module/serviceabstract.inc(62): OMV\System\Process->execute()

#1 /usr/share/openmediavault/engined/rpc/config.inc(167): OMV\Engine\Module\ServiceAbstract->deploy()

#2 [internal function]: Engined\Rpc\Config->applyChanges(Array, Array)

#3 /usr/share/php/openmediavault/rpc/serviceabstract.inc(123): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)

#4 /usr/share/php/openmediavault/rpc/serviceabstract.inc(149): OMV\Rpc\ServiceAbstract->callMethod('applyChanges', Array, Array)

#5 /usr/share/php/openmediavault/rpc/serviceabstract.inc(588): OMV\Rpc\ServiceAbstract->OMV\Rpc\{closure}('/tmp/bgstatusrc...', '/tmp/bgoutputD5...')

#6 /usr/share/php/openmediavault/rpc/serviceabstract.inc(159): OMV\Rpc\ServiceAbstract->execBgProc(Object(Closure))

#7 /usr/share/openmediavault/engined/rpc/config.inc(189): OMV\Rpc\ServiceAbstract->callMethodBg('applyChanges', Array, Array)

#8 [internal function]: Engined\Rpc\Config->applyChangesBg(Array, Array)

#9 /usr/share/php/openmediavault/rpc/serviceabstract.inc(123): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)

#10 /usr/share/php/openmediavault/rpc/rpc.inc(86): OMV\Rpc\ServiceAbstract->callMethod('applyChangesBg', Array, Array)

#11 /usr/sbin/omv-engined(537): OMV\Rpc\Rpc::call('Config', 'applyChangesBg', Array, Array, 1)

#12 {main}

Zitat von geaves

I actually read that section twice and it still made no sense, the logic did but the how did not.

Its even harder to make sense when you are looking at the Marvell BIOS screen

Zitat von geaves

Bypassing the above error message, you created a Mirror under Raid Management, you should then go to File Systems to format that Mirror

I think I didn't provide sufficient information in my last post on the issue but there was a "Device" under File System with "missing" status and was causing the previous error. I found similar issue on this OMV form and managed to get rid of the error by manually editing /etc/openmediavault/config.xml and removing that device. So I was able to create a new Device which is now "Online" (which is good?)

Now when I click on "Mount", I get a pop up windows with error "Failed to execute XPath query '//system/fstab'."

Error #0:
OMV\Config\DatabaseException: Failed to execute XPath query '//system/fstab'. in /usr/share/php/openmediavault/config/database.inc:262
Stack trace:
#0 /usr/share/openmediavault/engined/rpc/fstab.inc(123): OMV\Config\Database->set(Object(OMV\Config\ConfigObject))
#1 [internal function]: Engined\Rpc\FsTab->set(Array, Array)
#2 /usr/share/php/openmediavault/rpc/serviceabstract.inc(123): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)
#3 /usr/share/php/openmediavault/rpc/rpc.inc(86): OMV\Rpc\ServiceAbstract->callMethod('set', Array, Array)
#4 /usr/share/openmediavault/engined/rpc/filesystemmgmt.inc(897): OMV\Rpc\Rpc::call('FsTab', 'set', Array, Array)
#5 [internal function]: Engined\Rpc\OMVRpcServiceFileSystemMgmt->mount(Array, Array)
#6 /usr/share/php/openmediavault/rpc/serviceabstract.inc(123): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)
#7 /usr/share/php/openmediavault/rpc/rpc.inc(86): OMV\Rpc\ServiceAbstract->callMethod('mount', Array, Array)
#8 /usr/sbin/omv-engined(537): OMV\Rpc\Rpc::call('FileSystemMgmt', 'mount', Array, Array, 1)
#9 {main}

Did I break OMV5 by manually editing the config.xml ? Everything else seems to be working fine though (docker instances etc)