Call for testing and comment: Make the installer prefer >1G disks https://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20250502060000 #openbsd #installer #disks #storage #softraid #keydisks #partitioning #development #configuration
#softraid
I would really like to get off of OWC's SoftRAID because they seem to have problems with Apple's OS migrations, and they want an absurd amount of money for the subscription when they don't fix crashing bugs that have been around for years.
I'm considering running OpenZFS in an Ubuntu VM on my M4 Mac mini only because I've heard the macOS version requires a kext, which Apple is trying to kill off, and SIP changes.
Wow, do I ever regret buying #OWC's #SoftRAID. It lost track of one drive forcing me to initialize and rebuild it. While rebuilding, it bitched about another drive that kept disconnecting. Once the rebuild finished, I swapped enclosures (different manufacturer) for the supposedly disconnecting drive. SoftRAID didn't know anything about the drive forcing me to reinitialize it and rebuild yet again … that takes days for an 8 TB drive. Worst #RAID software ever.
Given the massive subscription price #OWC wants for #SoftRAID, they really need to do better. I started using SoftRAID in version 5 when they offered a pay-once license. This bug is still around in version 8!
The two 8 TB WD Red drives that failed in my RAID5 and were replaced I've since certified successfully so I thought I'd use them in a RAID1 mirror and only use them for data I can afford to lose. Well, several times one drive reported r/w errors so I swapped USB enclosures and the problem stayed with the enclosure, so I swapped back and will wait to see what happens. Meanwhile I'm writing a lot of data to them.
But swapping drives carries a severe penalty. #SoftRAID from #OWC has a fatal …
Notwithstanding the minor nuisance in #softraid, #OpenBSD 7.3 was a simple upgrade from 7.1 on my home firewall, even though I worked out decades ago that in-place upgrades are a recipe for disaster and always reinstall. Only hiccups were a couple of details I missed in updating my very-primitive configuration management; no bothersome system changes at all.
@ezio Not sure if you saw my post on the matter but uh... avoid #RAID.
https://mastodon.top/@lispi314/110977299337341764
Software RAID isn't much better generally, it still (to its fault) relies on the hardware telling something is wrong.
That was only a sane assumption on specific hardware in the past, but relying on the firmware of the drives themselves? That was *never* a sane assumption.
Major #SOFTRAID update 7.5 is out, with tons of bug fixes. Including a new driver architecture, compatibility improvements with Mac Studio, and more.
Requires macOS Ventura 13.3
@mwl thanks for your book ! is worth every penny, made me to make my hands dirty, install a puffy vm with uefi & gpt, played with softraid and finally destroyed the machine during maintenance task (exactly as you warned in your book)y. great experience and motivation #openbsd #uefi #gpt #softraid #cool #mwl #filesystem #mastery #bookfunnel
I’m using ZFS on my PC now (storage, not boot) but you can’t just add disks to a zraid vdev.
To be honest, I don’t care much for the higher end features of ZFS, I just want non-fixed sized partitions spanning disks, with parity, and optionally snapshots.
Any suggestions for a more flexible solution that will let me freely add and remove disks of various sizes?
Somewhere, right now, someone is upgrading #RAID storage to a bigger array. Not hardware, #softraid. Not the cheapest disks, WD Red Enterprise sourced individually, at different dates and providers. #MentalHealthMatters #HomeImprovement #SelfHosting #StayHomeMakeBackups
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