gyoza on 10 Mar 2005 14:11:47 -0000


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Re: [PLUG] Hardware RAID + [COS]


My motherboard has a Promise RAID 100 Lite controller built-in.

Recently, I was considering RAID 0 for my PC running XP and SuSE 9.1.  It seems that there is an outdated Promise driver for SuSE 8.  *There is also source code available on the same Web page.*  However, since I would need to have SuSE installed _before_ compiling the driver, I can't compile the driver, because I would need the driver first to install SuSE!

Anyway, I shyed away from RAID 0 for various reasons.  If my motherboard dies, the array goes with it.  If one drive dies, the array goes with it.  Plus, the extra power and heat associated with multiple drives with questionable speed advantage for desktop use.  RAID 1 is still a nice option, but not straight RAID 0.

I believe, the procedure for adding a RAID 1 array is to add the second drive, configure for mirroring, and let the controller do an initial replication of the first drive to the second drive.  From then on both should stay in sync.  BACK UP YOUR DATA FIRST!


> I have a 4-disk raid array that has been running 24/7 on IDE drives and a
> Promise SX4000 raid controller for 3 years without so much as a hiccup.. I
> would not recommend promise, though, because they give you only binary
> drivers that must be used with a stock Redhat kernel. They're morons for not
> giving their source to the kernel maintainers, but hey, if they want to have
> a flawed business model, that's their choice. 3Ware controllers are more
> expensive, but have kernel source drivers and are probably better anyway.
> 
> Personally, I like Raid-5 since I don't care about the slightly slower
> performance. The array is still faster than my network, so it doesn't
> matter.
> 
> Speaking of fast networks, has anyone ever actually gotten gigabit ethernet
> stuff to do decent speed? I spent a ton of money on nice SMC switches that
> support jumbo frames and the SMC cards to go along with them, and I still
> can only get about 125mbit/s out of them. Slightly better than the 90 I got
> out of my 10/100 cards... but abyssmal for the cost... MTUs are 9K, but I
> still can't get any decent speed out of them... does anyone have experience
> in this?
> E
> 
> ps. COS = Change of Subject...
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Doug Crompton" <doug@crompton.com>
> To: "Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List"
> <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>
> Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 1:19 AM
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] Hardware RAID
> 
> 
> > Remember that many items that we buy have longer warranties simply because
> > you pay more for it. It is kind of an upfront insurance. You pay more so
> > they can afford to cover it longer. SCSI drives are typically much higher
> > in price then corresponding IDE drives. In fact sometimes almost twice as
> > much or more. You could probably setup a RAID 5 IDE for the price of a two
> > drive mirrored SCSI.
> >
> > Heat is a big issue in drive life. Liquid cooling is an option. A friend
> > has a RAID array liquid cooled as well as the CPU.
> >
> > Doug
> >
> > On Wed, 9 Mar 2005, James Kelly wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I think where IDE got this reputation is that they are known to eat
> > > themselves alive under heavy load (ie constant reads and writes).  This
> > > is the kind of thing you have in a server environment, where at home you
> > > have access only when you want to play.  Or at least this is the CW.
> > >
> >
> >
> > ****************************
> > *  Doug Crompton    *
> > *  Richboro, PA 18954    *
> > *  215-431-6307    *
> > *      *
> > * doug@crompton.com        *
> > * http://www.crompton.com  *
> > ****************************
> >
> >
> >
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