Asus G713QY RAID0 LVM LUKS install? [SOLVED]

JustSomeGeek · 2024-06-13 17:33:41

Hi all,

I'm running Arch on this already, but now have 2x4TB matched SSD's to put in it, and I'm after words of advice, caution, recommendation, and hopefully pointers to the order I need to do things in.

Anyone used one of these laptops using the RAID feature in the BIOS, or had better results using Linux RAID in software?

I've never used LUKS before. Do I set it up before the LVM part of the install, or after?

I'm intending to use Arch as the only OS, like now, but is there anything I need to keep in mind if I want/need to install eg AVLinux alongside it in future?

This model isn't on https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ASUS_R … G17_(2022) Is it the same apart from being an ATI instead of NVidia GPU?

Thank you.

Last edited by JustSomeGeek (2024-06-20 22:01:41)

yataro · 2024-06-13 22:35:07

I'm after words of advice, caution, recommendation, and hopefully pointers to the order I need to do things in.

There are many possible setups, but why do you need raid0? I believe it will give you nothing but more proneness to failures (especially with encryption). Go for it only if you really need a big contiguous disk.

Anyone used one of these laptops using the RAID feature in the BIOS, or had better results using Linux RAID in software?

I have no experience with raid controllers on laptops, but in general those AMD/Intel fake raids are fine. For Linux, the preferred and more reliable method is to set up software raid.

I've never used LUKS before. Do I set it up before the LVM part of the install, or after?

There is no point for LUKS over LVM, each partition will have its own key and if you have many (root + swap for example) you will have to unlock each partition with its passphrase/use a TPM/store keys somewhere.
Idiomatic way is to set up LVM on LUKS - you need to unlock only a single partition with an LVM physical volume.

I'm intending to use Arch as the only OS, like now, but is there anything I need to keep in mind if I want/need to install eg AVLinux alongside it in future?

You can always shrink your partitions with mixed success, "move" them around to free up some space to install a new neighbor OS (always works for me, even with complex setups), but it's better and safer to just reserve some space at the end.

The design of your disk partitioning depends on many factors, whether you want to set up encrypted boot or not, RAID type, and so on. But I think you should definitely not use raid0 with your configuration.

JustSomeGeek · 2024-06-14 09:22:06

yataro wrote:

There are many possible setups, but why do you need raid0? I believe it will give you nothing but more proneness to failures (especially with encryption). Go for it only if you really need a big contiguous disk.

I have no experience with raid controllers on laptops, but in general those AMD/Intel fake raids are fine. For Linux, the preferred and more reliable method is to set up software raid.
There is no point for LUKS over LVM, each partition will have its own key and if you have many (root + swap for example) you will have to unlock each partition with its passphrase/use a TPM/store keys somewhere.
Idiomatic way is to set up LVM on LUKS - you need to unlock only a single partition with an LVM physical volume.

You can always shrink your partitions with mixed success, "move" them around to free up some space to install a new neighbor OS (always works for me, even with complex setups), but it's better and safer to just reserve some space at the end.
The design of your disk partitioning depends on many factors, whether you want to set up encrypted boot or not, RAID type, and so on. But I think you should definitely not use raid0 with your configuration.

It's for gaming and Audio/Video editing, so I want all the storage speed I can get. I know the risks and backup to the server, so no worries about failure, just inconvenience.

I'm not a fan of integrated fake raid either, but I wondered how it performed, The advantage being that I wouldn't have to set up software raid if do install other distros.

That makes sense with LUKS, thanks. There's a lot to digest for a first timer to understand.

I hadn't looked into encrypted boot, so thanks for the idea. I'll check that out.

Thanks!

yataro · 2024-06-14 13:57:58

I'm not a fan of integrated fake raid either, but I wondered how it performed, The advantage being that I wouldn't have to set up software raid if do install other distros.

Internet says there's no significant difference between fake and software raids.

This is the software raid setup for a UEFI system:

╔═════════════════╤══════════╤═════════════════════╤══════╗
║                 │ swap [3] │         root        │      ║
║                 ├──────────┴─────────────────────┤      ║
║                 │              LVM               │      ║
║      ┌──────────┼────────────────────────────────┤      ║
║      │ boot [2] │              LUKS              │      ║
╟──────┼──────────┴────────────────────────────────┼──────╢
║ esp  │                  md raid                  │ [1]  ║
╟──────┴─────────────────────┬─────────────────────┴──────╢
║            nvme0n1         │           nvme1n1          ║
╚════════════════════════════╧════════════════════════════╝

1. This space is "wasted" (equal to the size of the esp partition, 256-512M).
2. Can also reside on LUKS/LVM, but it will force you to use LUKS with PBKDF2 (with a single LUKS1 PBKDF2 volume, you can put the boot in root and not get an extra partition). You can have separate LUKS devices for boot and LVM root, but you either have to unlock two partitions at boot or store the key for the LVM root device in boot.
3. You can skip encryption for swap in favor of speed, but I don't recommend it, especially with hibernation. It can also be a swapfile in root.

You can add additional Linux systems to LVM, let them have personal swap if you need hibernation. You should also create a new boot (see [2] for alternative setup with LUKS1) for them. AVLinux is basically a Debian so setup would be trivial (I believe).
Setup with a fake raid will be easier, you can easily adapt this blueprint to it.

I wish you good luck and hope that your data will be safe .

JustSomeGeek · 2024-06-15 00:14:01

*Note for anyone finding the thread here: I had to change the logical block size from 4k to 512 on the nvme drives for RAIDXpert2 in the BIOS to be able to use the drives in AMD FakeRAID mode*

I normally have a 2G esp to have space for kernels, full uefi shell, bios images, and a couple of tools, so i guess the otherwise wasted space could be used for that kind of stuff too. I hate waste.

I'll see how it goes with this fakeraid setup, though I get the feeling it's a really bad idea, but a fantastic learning opportunity!

Thanks for the info! :-)

yataro · 2024-06-15 01:00:59

Glad you got things sorted out!
Btw, there's no need for boot and esp to share the same partition, grub has no problem loading kernels from boot that reside on md/lvm.
Typically, esp with all its efis (windows/linux/additional stuff) will take no more than 100M.

JustSomeGeek · 2024-06-15 10:50:52

Change of plan. I'm going for the Linux soft raid now. The more I read into the hacks I need to make AMD Fakeraid work, the nastier it gets, especially as I use DKMS. Shame, as it would have made a nice project just to get it working, but the pain involved is just not worth the learning experience.

Thanks for the ascii diagram though, it's great to help visualise things.

yataro · 2024-06-15 15:28:37

That's a good thing actually with a 4K sector size, you could theoretically get less heat or faster speed but it really depends on the whole setup. See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Advanc … ate_drives for info on how to set it up properly.

JustSomeGeek · 2024-06-15 20:02:11

Well I expected the Fakeraid to be presented transparently as a single device, and be OS system agnostic. But seeing as I need to faff about with setting it up in Linux anyway, I might as well use AHCI with softraid and change back to 4k. Heat shouldn't be an issue as it's only pcie v3, so i'm only going to get close to the speed of a single v4 drive at best, and even then, not for long periods.

I'm looking at this on the wiki:

=https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dm-cr … tware_RAID

The diagram seems to show a /boot partition on both drives(?), with /efi on an unencrypted raid1, and the rest of / on luks on raid0. I'm guessing this is to allow the system to boot and use the hdd if the 2nd ssd fails?

Last edited by JustSomeGeek (2024-06-15 20:59:32)

yataro · 2024-06-15 22:27:03

The diagram seems to show a /boot partition on both drives(?), with /efi on an unencrypted raid1, and the rest of / on luks on raid0. I'm guessing this is to allow the system to boot and use the hdd if the 2nd ssd fails?

It's not /boot, it's the legacy bios boot (irrelevant to you with UEFI), /boot shares partition with / (LUKS1 setup, described earlier), so no, there's no workaround to boot from the hdd.

esp with raid will only work with raid1. You can set up raid1 only for esp as shown in page you linked. This way you will not have "wasted" space on your second drive, but will have raid1 just for esp. In this case you are free to choose, it doesn't matter.
Btw, this "wasted" space is not totally wasted because you can format and mount this tiny piece as you want, but I doubt this is practical.

JustSomeGeek · 2024-06-20 22:01:22

Doh! Gotcha. I really shouldn't be on here unsupervised. All setup as in the diagram you posted. Only took 2 attempts too! Thanks for all the info!

yataro · 2024-06-20 23:26:17

It only took a week in total, consider it a great success !

Arch Linux

#1 2024-06-13 17:33:41

Asus G713QY RAID0 LVM LUKS install? [SOLVED]

#2 2024-06-13 22:35:07

Re: Asus G713QY RAID0 LVM LUKS install? [SOLVED]

#3 2024-06-14 09:22:06

Re: Asus G713QY RAID0 LVM LUKS install? [SOLVED]

#4 2024-06-14 13:57:58

Re: Asus G713QY RAID0 LVM LUKS install? [SOLVED]

#5 2024-06-15 00:14:01

Re: Asus G713QY RAID0 LVM LUKS install? [SOLVED]

#6 2024-06-15 01:00:59

Re: Asus G713QY RAID0 LVM LUKS install? [SOLVED]

#7 2024-06-15 10:50:52

Re: Asus G713QY RAID0 LVM LUKS install? [SOLVED]

#8 2024-06-15 15:28:37

Re: Asus G713QY RAID0 LVM LUKS install? [SOLVED]

#9 2024-06-15 20:02:11

Re: Asus G713QY RAID0 LVM LUKS install? [SOLVED]

#10 2024-06-15 22:27:03

Re: Asus G713QY RAID0 LVM LUKS install? [SOLVED]

#11 2024-06-20 22:01:22

Re: Asus G713QY RAID0 LVM LUKS install? [SOLVED]

#12 2024-06-20 23:26:17

Re: Asus G713QY RAID0 LVM LUKS install? [SOLVED]

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