Michael George wrote:
On Sun, Jan 19, 2003 at 06:57:07PM +1100, Steve & Dee McInerney wrote:
I have a FT 100 tx2, and am happy to answer what I can.
Suggest you ask the Q's of the list anyway.
I've found step-by-step instructions for installing RHL7.3 onto a system with all the disks on this controller, and then on to build the kernel with the linux native ataraid controller. That's all cool.
What I'm wondering is: 1. Is this truly a hardware RAID controller? I've seen references to it being a quasi-hardware RAID solution...
All of the raid is done in the driver. The controller has a few bios hooks to allow you to boot off raid devices. The real downside of the promise drivers are that they are not open source. This means you are stuck with the kernel that shipped with a given distro release. You might be better off with the linux software raid driver.
Keep in mind that ide really doesn't support hotswap. You can get devices that will allow you to safely pull drives out from an electrical stand point. In general you also need some way to convince the driver to stop using the port as well. I don't know any way to do that with promise's linux driver. (Maybe it works under windows.)
2. With the hot-swap chassis, can the linux ataraid controller really do the
hot-swapping and auto-rebuilding of drives? This is currently how my customer
does backups (yes, I am pushing them to get a tape drive) and if we cannot do
hot-swaps then we'll have to figure something out...
Personally I feel this is a horrible idea. Get a cdr drive, or a tape drive.
-- There is no such thing as obsolete hardware. Merely hardware that other people don't want. (The Second Rule of Hardware Acquisition) Sam Flory <sflory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
