Sophos XG - RAID

Hi,

I assume you are a home user, if so the answer is no directly. You could build a VM and then create a raise drive then install,XG. Only the higher end sophos hardware is fitted with raid.

Ian

Hi,

Thanks for reply. Im asking for full version of Software XG(Currently testing Free Trial):

https://secure2.sophos.com/en-us/products/next-gen-firewall/free-trial.aspx

Higher end sophos devices like XG 450 do not have hardware RAID but they use software RAID(mdraid: mdstat & mdadmin) and that software raid is included also in Software XG...

Report from XG450 of one user here:

XG450_WP02_SFOS 18.0.0 GA-Build379# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid0] [raid1] [raid10] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4]
md0 : active raid1 sda[0] sdb[1]
250059008 blocks [2/2] [UU]
bitmap: 2/2 pages [8KB], 65536KB chunk

unused devices: <none>

So I think that this can be done also with Software version of XG....

Virtualization is not option because, hypervisior take resources which can be used for XG and if hypervisior need to be rebooted XG will need a lot more to boot(hypervisor need boot) compared to normal installation...

I have one small server(Supermicro MB + Xeon e3-1220v3) on which I can try and test how to create that software raid included in XG software... But need ideas what to try...

I have idea to boot live linux, and on it create mdraid and then update grub to boot from this md0 drive ... Just theory which will probably not work...

Have a look at the 550 and 750 versions. The full version of the software is not much different to the home user version. Sophos' primary aim is the support and improvement of their own hardware.

I ran my XG on e3-1245 and prior to that a e31275 VMs and never had issues with rebooting the VM. A e3-1220 would be underpowered to run a VM with XG because you would run out of cores.

Ian

I understand that that they wan't to sell their hardware. But they selling also software which is also not cheap and is very close to their hw solution but likes that do not support RAID ...

For example XG450 have RAID(software mbraid) and for 3 years cost around 60k$ if I have right info it use Xeon E3 1275v5 + 16GB RAM. CPU is 4 core/8threads and their price list do not offer 4c 16GB license but offer 8c 16GB license which cost same price as XG450 but offer me more cpu performance.

Another thing is if I compare their HW to SW Im found that HW solutions have slow and laggy GUI. Im work with XG125 v1 or v2(don't remember right) and now work with XG135 and GUI is a lot of slower than on more than 10years old half slower PC(Intel P8600 Core2Duo CPU, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD). SW solution boot and is useable(GUI) in around one minute, XG135 need few minutes(around 5-7). To login and see DHCP lease on SW solution I need around half minute on XG135 1 minute or more... And 135 have SSD, SW solution have HDD...

Main problem is that they selling product(software) for same price as HW as enterprise solution but do not offer basic failure protection(simple sw raid 1)?

As I know there is also problem that SW do not work with most of HW RAID solutions. Does they provide "compatibility list" for raid controllers, network cards? Im not sure that there is one...

P.S. If you have any idea how we can enable mbraid inside sw version(tools are included in sw) or how to make that sw detect second hdd will be great.

Im do little researching and until now fount this:

If I install SW XG on 2 HDD seperate one by one and boot from HDD1 and run:

cat /proc/partitions

I see sda and sdb device but sdb do not contain same partitions.

But if I check inside /dev/ directory I see only sda and sdb is missing.

Hi,

some information that I cannot prove or disprove, the vm install files appear to use two disks. I have only ever installed from an iso.

ian 

Hi,

some information that I cannot prove or disprove, the vm install files appear to use two disks. I have only ever installed from an iso.

ian