Yes, I must have missed that. I've only been on the mailing list for a week or so. I did go through some of the archives though. I keep my kernel up to date, usually within a few days of a release. The 3ware and Areca cards sound nice, but I could buy quite a few drives for the price of those cards (for a 12 port card). Which is what made me start seriously considering software raid. Plus, from what I understand, with software raid it is easier to change out server parts than it is with hardware raid, i.e. swapping controllers or motherboard, etc. After reading a few responses that I have gotten, it sounds like a budget based *raid* card from a good vender with good linux support might be the best option to get a good number of ports on a PCIe interface, and have it work well with linux, all well being cheaper than a full blown hardware raid solution. Thanks for the info and I will have a look at the cards you mentioned. Lyle On Tue, 2007-11-06 at 00:41 -0600, Alberto Alonso wrote: > You've probably missed a discussion on issues I've been having with > SATA, software RAID and bad drivers. A clear thing from the responses > I got is that you really need to use a recent kernel, as they may have > fixed those problems. > > I didn't get clear responses indicating specific cards that are > known to work well when hardrives fail. But if you can deal with > a server crashing and then rebooting manually then software RAID > is the way to go. I've always been able to get the servers back > online even with the problematic drivers. > > I am happy with the 3ware cards and do use their hardware RAID to > avoid the problems that I've had. With those I've fully tested > 16 drive systems with 2 arrays using 2 8-port cards. Others have > recommended the Areca line. > > As for cheap "dumb" interfaces I am now using the RocketRAID 2220, > which gives you 8 ports on a PCI-X. I believe the "built" in RAID > on those is just firmware based so you may as well use them to > show the drives in normal/legacy mode and use software RAID on > top. Keep in mind I haven't fully tested this solution nor have > tested for proper functioning when a drive fails. > > Another inexpensive card I've used with good results is the Q-stor > PCI-X card, but I think this is now obsolete. > > Hope this helps, > > Alberto > > > On Tue, 2007-11-06 at 05:20 +0300, Lyle Schlueter wrote: > > Hello, > > > > I just started looking into software raid with linux a few weeks ago. I > > am outgrowing the commercial NAS product that I bought a while back. > > I've been learning as much as I can, suscribing to this mailing list, > > reading man pages, experimenting with loopback devices setting up and > > expanding test arrays. > > > > I have a few questions now that I'm sure someone here will be able to > > enlighten me about. > > First, I want to run a 12 drive raid 6, honestly, would I be better of > > going with true hardware raid like the areca ARC-1231ML vs software > > raid? I would prefer software raid just for the sheer cost savings. But > > what kind of processing power would it take to match or exceed a mid to > > high-level hardware controller? > > > > I haven't seen much, if any, discussion of this, but how many drives are > > people putting into software arrays? And how are you going about it? > > Motherboards seem to max out around 6-8 SATA ports. Do you just add SATA > > controllers? Looking around on newegg (and some googling) 2-port SATA > > controllers are pretty easy to find, but once you get to 4 ports the > > cards all seem to include some sort of built in *raid* functionality. > > Are there any 4+ port PCI-e SATA controllers cards? > > > > Are there any specific chipsets/brands of motherboards or controller > > cards that you software raid veterans prefer? > > > > Thank you for your time and any info you are able to give me! > > > > Lyle > > > > - > > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in > > the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
