RAID on AMD B850

Hardware Support
1

Good evening forum,

I have a small issue using RAID on my current desktop (new build from last year) that I've spent some troubleshooting on. The bottom line is that I can't get RAID to work on it. Below are the steps I've taken and hardware specs of my system. My previous desktop 9700k/Intel Z390 RAID worked exactly this way, so when I switched to AMD, this method hasn't worked. I think it has to do with the meta data Intel RAID (in bios) makes RAID arrays with specific metadata. However, I have no way to prove that.

Specs:
Gigabyte B850M motherboard
9800X3D
2x 8TB Seagate Barracuda drives (SATA)
2x 2TB WD SN850x (One with W*ndows and One with Zorin 18 Pro)

Steps:

  1. Verify drives are seen in lsblk -- good
  2. Run mdadm script to mount drives in specific order by serial number identification to mount as a RAID 0 -- good
    2.b.) In case the order was messed up on AMD RAID, I also tried swapping the RAID drive order
  3. Load veracrypt and point it to the RAID array that was made with mdadm -- fails (only fails on Zorin)

The same drives work on the W*ndows installation without a problem with veracrypt. This method with mdadm was also the identical method I used with Zorin 17.3 on my Intel system with the same drives, which is also how I located the serial numbers to create the array with originally.

Thank you for taking the time to read about my personal problems :slight_smile:

If you have any suggestions or need info, just let me know. I still consider myself kind of new to Linux in general.

Regards,
K

2

Does it wirk without Veracrypt?

3

For an experienced and advanced user, RAID on GnuLinux is tricky.
The mdadm package is native Linux, but Intel RST wants its own proprietary metadata written to disk.
AMD, on the other hand, will balk at Intel's RST.
So you have a three way standoff between them.

What you want to do is wipe out anything that is not mdadm, so that only one is in charge, not standoff.
This means wipe all old data from the RAID block first, then rebuild mdadm.

(It's like, two terminal commands.)

I am not a RAID expert, so I recommend a high level guide.