On 10/4/2012 6:28 PM, Rainer Fügenstein wrote: > I'd like to replace the 4x 1.5TB WD drives in my atom-based NAS-like > server with 4x 3TB ones - the SATA controller is a Promise TX4 300. > will this controller be able to handle 3TB disks? (not eager to find > out the hard way). The drive compat list on their site is dated 2005. The largest drive listed is less than 1TB. The firmware for d/l is the initial firmware--no updates. Educated guess says the card won't support 3TB drives. Contact Promise support to verify. > If not, which (inexpensive) PCI SATA controllers would you recommend? I wouldn't. If your mobo SATA chip supports PMP get a 5x1 PMP. Check the kernel.org SATA chip list for PMP capability: https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/SATA_hardware_features http://www.addonics.com/products/ad5sapm.php 1 host port, 5 drive ports, 3Gb/s SATAII $62 from the manufacturer, probably found a little cheaper if you look around. If your mobo SATA chip is SATAII/III you'll get up to 600MB/s duplex throughput via this PMP to the drives. PCI-32/33 is limited to 132MB/s, ~4 times less throughput. No additional drivers are required for the PMP. You only need those for the mobo SATA chip/port to which the PMP is connected. Note: if you plan to boot from this 4x3TB array then PMP is not for you. HBAs will apparently only boot from the device connected to drive port #1 on the PMP. Thus if that drive fails you may not be able to boot from another drive in the array without manually swapping connectors. Swapping cables may affect device naming/ordering, possibly causing problems with array assembly. If you use wisely use a separate boot disk/SSD on another mobo SATA port then this isn't an issue. If your mobo SATA chip doesn't support PMP, let me know and I'll dig up an appropriate inexpensive 4 port PCI SATA HBA for you. -- Stan -- 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
