[PVE-User] Intel RST / VROC support in latest Proxmox?

[Philippe Andersson]

Hello Aaron,

Many thanks for your reply, first of all.

On 27/06/2023 10:33, Aaron Lauterer wrote:
> AFAIK, VROC has two variants, actual HW RAID and so-called fake RAID. If
> it is the fake RAID variant, it will be ignored and the single disks
> should be shown in the installer.
I don't know whether this "fake RAID vs real RAID" still applies to the
recent BIOS/UEFI firmwares.

We recently tested (at work) an HP Z4 Gen5 workstation with 2 NVMEs
configured in RAID-1 through VROC, and the openSUSE 15.4 we installed
there had no issue seeing the resulting LUN. Even better, we could use
regular 'mdadm' to monitor the state of the array (although 'mdadm'
could not modify its configuration, obviously -- that can only be done
through the BIOS/UEFI utilities).

But for this to work, you need some so-called "hardware enablement"
module loaded in the kernel, that I believe is called 'intel_rst' (not
100% sure -- we no longer have the test workstation, unfortunately). If
that module is also bundled with the kernel that ships with Proxmox 8, I
don't see why it should not work there as well.

> If it is an actual HW RAID, it should only show a single block device
> for each RAID to the OS.
On the HP Z4 Gen5 workstation we evaluated, that's exactly what happened.

> In consumer boards, the chances of VROC being the fake RAID variant are
> quite high.
Maybe or maybe not, but I'd rather make sure before buying :-/

> But why not ZFS with mirrored (maybe even multiple mirrored disk, RAID
> 10 like)?
I'm already quite familiar with md-raid + LVM (not on Proxmox,
obviously, but on openSUSE), but I never used ZFS. Although the server
we're discussing is a home server, it's still a "production" home server
and I don't want to face the learning curve when things go south. Based
on what I read, ZFS sounds interesting, but I'd rather experiment with
it on a test machine first.

> In case of a disk failure, the handling of it is much nicer and if you
> can hotplug the disks, you don't even need to power down the machine.
The budget I plan to spend on the replacement server won't allow for
hotplug, I'm afraid, but in terms of disk failure handling, it's hard to
beat true HW RAID in my experience.

Cheers,

Ph. A.

>
>
> Cheers,
> Aaron
>
> On 6/27/23 09:50, Philippe Andersson wrote:
>> Hello List,
>>
>> Quick question. I'm currently looking into upgrading my home Proxmox
>> server (using PC components meant for the home market, for cost
>> reasons), and getting a "real" hardware RAID proposition under these
>> conditions turns out to be quite an ordeal. Intel RST/VROC seems to be
>> the only available option.
>>
>> Can anyone on this list please confirm whether these technologies are
>> supported by the latest Proxmox VE installer/kernel ?
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>> Ph. A.
>>
>> --
>>
>> *Philippe Andersson*
>> Unix System Administrator
>> IBA Particle Therapy |
>> Tel: +32-10-475.983
>> Fax: +32-10-487.707
>> eMail: pan at iba-group.com
>> <http://www.iba-worldwide.com>
>>
>>
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--

*Philippe Andersson*
Unix System Administrator
IBA Particle Therapy |
Tel: +32-10-475.983
Fax: +32-10-487.707
eMail: pan at iba-group.com
<http://www.iba-worldwide.com>



Disclaimer | Use of IBA e-communication<https://iba-worldwide.com/disclaimer>

The contents of this e-mail message and any attachments are intended solely for the recipient (s) named above. This communication is intended to be and to remain confidential and may be protected by intellectual property rights. Any use of the information contained herein (including but not limited to, total or partial reproduction, communication or distribution of any form) by persons other than the designated recipient(s) is prohibited. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free. Ion Beam Applications does not accept liability for any such errors. Thank you for your cooperation.