XenServer 6.2 and fake RAID1

Thu, 27 Feb 2014 13:59:52 +0000

XenServer, like many other bare-metal hypervisors, only supports a small bunch of RAID controllers.
The difference between it and for example VMware ESXi is that XenServer is pretty much a CentOS minimal install with some proprietary administration tools and a pretty decent remote manager (only for Windows as long as I know…) while ESXi is a completely proprietary closed source blob.
XenServer being based on CentOS makes it possible to do many weird unsupported things, like installing it on a software fake RAID on ICH8R.
To install it on a software RAID1 all we have to do is perform the usual installation (without configuring any local storage) on a single HDD (/dev/sda), copy everything on a second drive (/dev/sdb) and use mdadm to build a couple of RAID volumes.
– I’m pretty much only reposting things I read somewhere, I don’t take any credit for this guide –

Fake RAID on nagg.eu

XenServer 6.2 and fake RAID1