----- Original Message ----- From: "Samuel Flory" <sflory@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <ataraid-list@xxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, October 21, 2002 6:05 PM Subject: Re: Software or Hardware? > Dave Stubbs wrote: > > >Hello all, > > > >The Promise RAID controllers "claim" to be hardware RAID controllers. However, > >it looks an aweful lot like the ataraid drivers in Linux are doing all the array > >management in software. Is this a mistaken impression? > > > > > > > > Promise fasttrak cards do raid in the driver. So effectively they > are doing software raid. (This is also why they can't spen source their > driver.) Their supertrak cards do hardware raid, but last I checked > linux support was problematic. If you want to do software raid I > recommend the Promise Ultratrak. > > 3ware has a nice line of hardware raid controllers that are very well > supported under linux. The driver is open source, and they regularly > update the driver in the mainline kernel. The card come in 2, 4, 8, 12 > ports. They cost a lot more, but you tend to get what you pay for. > > Adaptec has a 4 port card that works well under linux. Provided you > use the dpt_i2o driver instead of generic i2o driver. Their 2 port card > is a highpoint card. Ah! So now it all makes sense! So it IS software RAID. Ok, I wasn't dreaming. I definitely agree that if I had it to do over again I wouldn't go with the Promise RAID controller, but now that my machine is running the beastie, it is quite stable, so I'm not going to knock it. Gotta love it - version 0.03beta on Linux is more stable than full release Windows! Dave...
