RAID and FakeRAID configuration

This page covers the disk RAID configurations supported for the MK.IO Beam system drive.

Info: RAID vs FakeRAID: With hardware RAID, the controller assembles the array itself and presents it to the OS as a single ordinary disk (/dev/sdX). With FakeRAID, the controller only stores RAID metadata; the OS assembles the array in software, and it appears as /dev/mdX with the member disks still visible separately. Check the controller model in the server's RAID/BIOS utility or management console (for example, iDRAC) to determine which type is in use.

Info: Sector size: From MK.IO Beam 1.14.0, the system drive may use either a 512-byte or a 4Kn (4096-byte) sector size. On earlier releases it must be 512 bytes: installation onto a 4Kn drive fails when the installer mounts the boot partition.

Hardware RAID

Hardware RAID has always been supported for the MK.IO Beam system drive. Before 1.14.0 the virtual disk must be created with a 512-byte block size; from 1.14.0 a 4096-byte block size is also supported. Controllers often default to 4096, so check the block size when creating the virtual disk if the server is running an earlier release.

FakeRAID

From MK.IO Beam 1.14.0, FakeRAID is supported for the system drive. The following settings are required: