Re: [SLUG] linux hardware raid controllers

[Ben de Luca <c9415120@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

answers and questions bellow.

On Tuesday, October 21, 2003, at 06:10  PM, Matt M wrote:

> You can hotswap IDE RAID, with either Promise's HotSwap Kit 
> (specifically designed for RAID1), or using something like External 
> Serial-ATA from HighPoint (they may make an internal version of this; 
> I've thought about reverse engineering their hotswap containers; I 
> suspect they just wire straight through).
>
> Both of which should have good Linux support (not tested myself).

Has any one run one of these? I have only see promises large external 
raid arrays and they were defenitly not hot swapable (i bought a few 
when last year). Any way I can afford scsi.

> SCSI's great. IMO, it'll always be faster, no matter what the IDE 
> drive specs state. I run both my workstations on SCSI, and love it. It 
> is pricey, however. The good news is that almost all mainstream SCSI 
> RAID controllers have Linux support (IIRC). I run a Dell PERC2/DC 
> (Ultra2, rebadged AMI EliteRAID 1500) in my other workstation. Works 
> great with the megaraid driver.

so you like the AMI EliteRAID1500. ? how feature full is the driver? 
can you blink disk LEDS?

> With a bit of luck, you can pick up a (used, but very good condition) 
> Ultra2 multichannel SCSI RAID controller for $150-200 on ebay. A 
> hotswap cage will set you back much, much more (between $600 and $2000 
> new). As for new controllers, I understand they start at around $800 
> or so. Look at LSI (Formerly Mylex and AMI) and Adaptec (I don't have 
> experience with their RAID cards, but, of course, their SCSI gear is 
> nice, if expensive.)

I like the 4 channel mylex cards! I had a few running a couple of TB 
last year (I am so looking forward to being able to create +2tb 
terrabyte arrays! 2.6!! 2.6!!). I will probably go with a mylex card, 
but I seem to remember the mylex raid card developer died last year and 
I was wondering if the driver was continuing to be well supported. Last 
year I purchased a couple of thousand quid adaptec card and found its 
linux support was nothing less than shocking. It was very shocking, it 
was attrocous  and there tech support was horrible, its still in a box 
some where and I would sooner not buy an adaptec card ever again.


> You do lose out in storage capacity under SCSI. A new 200GB IDE drive 
> costs $400. A new 146GB SCSI disk will set you back $1000+.

Thankfully, its not my money :) and i only need a couple of hundred gigs


> If you're looking for an ironclad solution for work, I'd probably buy 
> something of a big vendor like Dell or IBM (as part of a server, or 
> whatever). Both of them have pretty good track records with regards to 
> supporting RAID under linux (Dell even sponsors the development of 
> drivers for their cards).

My experiance is that I would sooner not have any thing to do with 
these venders especialy when it comes to linux. In fact I refuse to 
work with IBM at all, after some wonderfull stuff ups with a couple of 
hundred thousand dollars worth of SAN gear. I can only advise you from 
my experiances that you all do they same.


> Cheers,
>
> Matt
>
> P.S. A RAID solution will not save you from backups. It won't even 
> save you from backing up often. It will save your uptime, and it will 
> help you restore in the event of a disk failure.
ype just need to keep running in the event of disk failure.



> At 17:08 21/10/2003, you wrote:
> > Would any one feel inclined to recommend some thing? I would prefer
> > hardware over software and I don't need much space, a couple of 
> > hundred
> > gigs, I just want it to be stable and safe. I will probably Just raid
> > mirror two drives.
> >
> > SCSI is best for its hotswap ability. So no IDE,ATA cards thanks?
> >
> > What do you think? Any one want to sell me one(new)?
> >
> > Bend,
> >
> >
> > --
> > SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/
> > More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
>
>
> --
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