Please can you produce your screen output in a different way. If you use Windows on your LAN, get hold of a copy of the free utilities WinSCP (for graphical file management and a text editor) and PuTTy (for a remote console from where you can copy text just by selecting it and paste into it by right-clicking).

Please then expand your PuTTy console (to stop the screen from wrapping) and five the output to the command:

findmnt

Copy from the screen by using the mouse select and paste into the forum between "code" tags (the piece of paper icon with a <> on it)

Hi guys, my issue with my raid was sorted. The machine I’m using did the raid and I then mounted the drive which ClearOS was seeing a sign one drive. What I’m not too sure about the flexshares if they are storing my stuff there yet. See upload, for the mounting. Not sure if this was the best way out but it’s where I’m at.

Hi guys, my issue with my raid was sorted. The machine I’m using did the raid and I then mounted the drive which ClearOS was seeing a sign one drive. What I’m not too sure about the flexshares if they are storing my stuff there yet. See upload, for the mounting. Not sure if this was the best way out but it’s where I’m at.

My issue was resolved, ummm the server I was using was doing the raiding and ClearOS only saw the raid partition as one large drive. So I mounted it a second shown in screenshot. Although I’m not sure where and how my flexshares have actually been storing data there.

I am confused as I thought you were doing a RAID array but you only are talking about a single extra disk here. If you want an array you'll need to add all the disks then build the array using the document I linked to. When you've done that, you'll end up with an array called md0 or md1 or something like that.

Then you have a decision. Do you add it to the LVM you have or do you operate outside the LVM. Personally I am wary or the LVM. It gives great flexibility as it allows you to pool partitions and drives into a single space, but this has the downside in that you date may end up scattered across partitions or disks. You will need to read up about the LVM.

Alternatively you can use the Storage Manager concept and mount the array into somewhere like /store. Then you can bind mount your data stores onto this a structure under /store. Typically you would want to bind /var/flexshare/shares under /store. You may also want /home there and some of the system files like the system-mysql database. There is a really good KB article here.

Somewhere along the line you'll need to format your disk. It needs to be done before you use the /store approach as you mount a partition not a drive (but they can be synonymous with USB pen drives and SD cards). I think with the LVM you format after you have joined the array to the volume.

It may help to give the full "fdisk -l" output because then you will see the partitions on the disk.

Also note that, easier than attaching a screenshot, if you select the text with the mouse, in PuTTy it automatically gets copied to the the clipboard. You can paste it straight into the forum but preferably between "code" tags ( the piece of paper icon with a <> on it). You can paste into PuTTy just by right-clicking.

Morning Nick and everybody

so this where i am now with the partition stuff, on one hand i see my drive as dev/sdb but on the other hand when i do df -h i dont see it. what do i need to do now to make the that drive dev/sdb with 5999.9G usable? from the screenshots youll see what mean.

Yes, that is correct. You should not have to reinstall ClearOS as it is not installed on your RAID. I'm sure I've seen better documentation for creating a RAID than what I linked you to.......

Google is my friend. I've found this howto but it is missing from the documentation index. I'll add it now.

Good day Nick and everybody,
thank you for the great advice and patience, it is very helpful.

So to be clear, my raid 5 will not be seen by the clear os? so i would have to undo what i did in my bios and have my drives sit as individual drives then mount and create my raid 5 partitiion again but now using software. I hope i can do this without reinstalling clear os?

Going through the knowledge base material also.

ClearOS, along with most Linux distros does not understand motherboard RAID (aka fake raid). There is a document here about setting up RAID after installation.

Unce you set up a RAID, You may want to search the Knowledgebase for articles about the Storage amnager (search for store). There are a couple of good articles. You will probably want to set up a storage location for /var/flexshare/shares on your RAID array and bind mount it into /var/flexshare/shares.

If you just have Win10 Home, you can change the Samba mode to "Simple Server". It does not do much apart from hiding the domain part of Samba (although it is still working in the background). You can still map network drives and it works best if the Windows and ClearOS user/pass are the same.

If you want access to your files when not at home, probably the easiest way is using OpenVPN. As a tip, though, if you are going to connect by OpenVPN it is best if your LAN subnet is not 192.168.0.0/24 or 192.168.1.0/24. Alternatively you could look at OwnCloud (which may be dropped soon) or NextCloud, but I believe you have to pay for both.

Ok great, i installed Samba and flexshares and im using PuTTy, but before i went ahead and created users and logins i added a screenshot of the result of the df -h. it seems my raid drive isnt listed and id to add it as it has the storage capacity id like to use. how do i go about that?

I will have to check if we are all using windows 10 pro but i dont think so,

The raid was setup in the Bios and when i installed clear os i did see it listed as options to install on to but i installed clear os on a smaller stand alone drive.

When all is done, is it possible then to have remote access to my files when im not at home ? if so how do i go about doing that?

For a shared filesystem, install Windows Networking (Samba) and Flexshares. For User Login, unless you have an AD DC available on your LAN, choose OpenLDAP for your directory server.

When using ClearOS in NAS mode, users not not need to log on. They just have to supply credentials when connecting to the network drives. If you want users to log on (which in some ways makes things easier and in some ways harder), Windows networking can work as an NT4 style Domain Controller and it comes pre-configured to work that way (although you don't have to use it for NAS mode). To join Windows PC to a domain, if Windows 10, they must be the Pro edition. The Home edition cannot join a domain. I don't know about other windows versions. Then have a look at the app documentation (the slanted book icon) and various KB articles about joining various types of O/S's to a domain in the Knowledge Base.

With respect to RAID, did you set it up when you installed ClearOS? What is the output of:

df -h

cat /etc/fstab

If you have not done so already, get hold of a copy of the free utilities WinSCP (for graphical file management and a test editor) and PuTTy (for a remote console from where you can copy text just by selecting it and paste into it by right-clicking).