Messages

31

Users / Re: Setup additional harddrive

« on: September 04, 2008, 07:00:07 am »

Wow, thank you for the speedy reply colinjones.

Technically speaking I have 8 terabyte drives in a hardware raid 6 configuration. (see my other poste here: http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=6145.0 )

My raid card then carves the single raid disk into several 1 terabyte luns, which are in turn presented to the operating system as individual drives.  I do this because when I have it as a single 6 TB drive, the OS has all kinds of issues.  If I install Kubuntu, I can mount all the drives, partition, and format them... however, I am unsure of what steps I should do to get Linux MCE to see them.

I have tried partitioning and formatting them within Kubuntu and then installing LinuxMCE.   That didn't work.

So how should I go about making these drives avaialbe to Linux MCE?  What is the standard way of adding additional drives? 

32

Users / Re: Setup additional harddrive

« on: September 04, 2008, 06:48:55 am »

never mount anything manually in LMCE, you _will_ break it! It will detect the drive automatically and ask what you want to do with it. If it doesn't then you have some other problem you need to fix so that it does, but never mount manually...

I have to do the CD install path in order to get LinuxMCE functioning. (Driver support for my Raid controller.)   I guess my question should be, do I need to partition and format the additional hard drives when I initially set up Kubuntu, or do I just leave them without partitions?

I have attempted to install multiple times, using various methods and I am having issues with these drives.  Your assistance is  greatly appreciated.

33

Users / Re: Setup additional harddrive

« on: September 04, 2008, 05:39:21 am »

That is what I figured... so I have 6 terabyte hard drives, formatted ex3, however I dont see them.  (I did not attempt to mount them )

Any ideas?

34

Users / Re: Setup additional harddrive

« on: September 04, 2008, 04:39:05 am »

Do you have to mount the hard drive in order for LinuxMCE to see it, or will it be detected and utilized automatically?

35

Installation issues / Re: 3Ware 9650SE Raid controller issues.

« on: September 03, 2008, 04:21:51 am »

I have yet another update.

The issue has something to do with maximum allowed disk size.  I am not sure if it is an issue with kubutu or with my motherboards bios, however, when I set this raid controller up to auto carve luns out of my 6 terabyte drive, I can install Kubuntu.  Now I am following the advice shown below on how to partition those drives so that they can be best utilized for storing media.

I will update this post as things progress.

From "blog gelusi: Linux Tuning Guide" (http://gelusi.blogspot.com/2008/02/linux-tuning-guide.html)

 1. Filesystem
 Block sizes
 
 For filesystems dedicated to serving fairly large files, adopting a larger than default 1024 byte block size may yield significant
 performance gains.
 
 Recent transactions on the linux kernel list suggest that setting the block sizein an ext2 file system to 4096 instead of the
 default 1024 will result in less file fragmentation, faster fsck's, faster deletes and faster raw read speed, due to the reduced
 number of seeks.
 
 Unfortunately this cannot be changed on the fly. Only a reformat will make this so. The command to format a file system with 4096
 byte blocks is:
 
mke2fs -b 4096 /dev/whatever
 
 Additionally, on any filesystems except those used for logfiles, the default of 5% reserved for root use is excessive for large
 file systems, so the command to make the filesystem can be augmented to
 
 mke2fs -b 4096 -m 1 /dev/whatever to set the reserved fraction to 1 percent.
Then if you want a journaling (ext3) filesystem:

mke2fs -b 4096 -m 1 -j /dev/whatever

36

Installation issues / Re: 3Ware 9650SE Raid controller issues.

« on: August 31, 2008, 04:12:48 am »

I have an update.

It seems that if you wait a REALLY long time after getting the Unknown Partition table signature error the installation will finish.  The issue that I see now is that I can't seem to create a mountable partition on the rest of the 6 TB drive.

Is there a limit to the physical size of the boot drive that is causing me this issue?

According to this site: http://www.cyberciti.biz/howto/question/static/maximum-partition-size.php I should be able to serve up a 6TB drive to the OS without issue right?

37

Installation issues / 3Ware 9650SE Raid controller issues.

« on: August 31, 2008, 12:26:30 am »

Hello,

First off, let me say that I am not a total newbie when it comes to Linux, but I am also not as proficient in this OS as I am in Windows. Secondly I can safely say that I have spent limitless hours scouring the forums here looking for an answer to my issue. 

Here is my core system configuration:
•   MSI K9A2 Platinum motherboard
•   AMD Phenom 9650 2.3GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Quad-Core
•   4Gigs Ram
•   3Ware 9650SE-16ML Raid controller
•   Western Digital Caviar 1TB (8 total in a raid 5 array)
•   Broadcom Gig Nic
•   NORCO RPC-4020 4U Rack Mount Case
•   600 watt power supply

My issue seems centered around the 3ware Raid controller.  When using the DVD to install LinuxMCE, the system can see sda1 as a 5.4TB drive, but when the installer gets to the point where you are supposed to choose an drive to install too, you get this message:
HDIO_Drive_CMD (Identify) Failed: Invalid Argument
HDIO_Drive_CMD (Identify) Failed: Invalid Argument
/dev/sda1
It will allow you to choose the unidentified disk, and the install proceeds.  However, after the dvd is copied to the hard drive and the bios probes for devices,  you get a repeating message:
Unknown Partition table signature
If I remove the RAID controller and hook a drive directly to the motherboard, it works fine.   I really need to get this raid controller working.  According to the forums, the 6.22 kernel has the 3ware card driver, so I should be good to go.  Any suggestions?

38

Installation issues / Re: Two Nics

« on: August 28, 2008, 01:23:09 am »

setting up the bond itself should be the easiest part :-)

Do you have some information that may be of use in my endeavor?  Documentation perhaps?

My hardware arrived today, so I will be starting shortly.

39

Installation issues / Re: Two Nics

« on: August 26, 2008, 11:08:34 pm »

hehe, it is possible. You could use the bonding driver to load balance the two internal nics. But this is not supported, and you have to do some (read many) tweaks.

best regards,
Hari

Yup, it is possible but not supported...  I'll take a swing at it and share my experience since I am familiar in this process.  I have a quad port gig nic form Broadcom that I plan to use on the MCE network.

Here is a link to the step-by-step I wrote for configuring network bonding in Ubuntu 6.10.  From what I have seen thus far, the process has not changed.


http://howtoforge.com/network_bonding_ubuntu_6.10 

40

Installation issues / Re: Does each media director need a TV Tuner?

« on: August 24, 2008, 04:04:30 pm »

Mark,

You do not have to install a TV Tuner card in each Media Director.  The whole idea behind this project is the sharing of your media.  I would recommend putting a couple TV Tuners in your core.  With that set up, you can access your recorded/live TV from any media director.  Word to the wise: Gigabit Ethernet between each device is essential!  Streaming video will not work well on a 10/100 network.


Good luck!