ATARAID(4)

💖 ATARAID(4) — software BIOS RAID 💖

hey bestie, welcome to the ATARAID(4) page from the Kernel Interfaces Manual — we’re doing software BIOS RAID today and it’s giving low-level but make it cute 💅

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🌸 NAME 🌸

ataraid — software BIOS RAID

okay so that’s the whole name, no cap. software BIOS RAID, right there. ✨

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

pseudo-device ataraid
ld* at ataraid? vendtype ? unit ?

literally copy these exactly, bestie — the kernel is not here for your creative spelling 🫶

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🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

The ataraid driver provides support for BIOS-based software RAID controllers. These are devices which have some simple support for several basic RAID levels (often RAID 0 and RAID 1), but which require software support to actually perform the RAID function. The BIOS support is largely just to create and recognize the array so that it may be a boot device.

translating the vibe: the BIOS is doing the “hey I see an array” part, and the software has to do the actual RAID work. iconic division of labor, honestly 👑

The driver currently supports RAID formats from:

• Adaptec HostRAID (found in Intel 6300ESB)
• Intel MatrixRAID
• JMicron RAID
• nVidia MediaShield
• Promise FastTrak
• Via V-RAID (found in many VIA-based motherboards)

Status of the logical disk, as well as the disks associated with it, can be viewed through the bioctl(8) utility.

so yeah — if you wanna peek at the logical disk and its associated disks, bioctl(8) is the main character for that 💫

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• ld(4)
• bioctl(8)

go read those too, bestie — iykyk 📚✨

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🕰️ HISTORY 🕰️

The ataraid driver first appeared in NetBSD 2.0.

periodt. that’s the origin story 🎬💖

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🫶 AUTHORS 🫶

The ataraid driver was originally adapted from FreeBSD by Jason Thorpe ⟨thorpej@NetBSD.org⟩.

shoutout Jason Thorpe, fr fr — adapting from FreeBSD and making it happen 🛠️👑

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💀 BUGS 💀

Not all features of the software RAID are currently recognized or supported. For example, the Adaptec support doesn't recognize when a RAID 1 should be in a “building” state, and it does not do the right thing.

⚠️ bestie, this is a real caveat — the Adaptec support misses the RAID 1 “building” state, and it does not do the right thing. not a vibe, but it’s the truth 😭

At least part of the reason for this is that the publicly-available information on these formats is quite limited.

so yeah — the info out there is limited, and that’s at least part of the reason. no cap 🙈

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🎀 and that’s the page, bestie — brought to you by Debian, dated September 16, 2008, for ATARAID(4). 💖