[KLUG Members] Promise RAID supported?

[Bryan-TheBS-Smith]

Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> Is the promise IDE Raid controller supported by BS-Ware PRO #5?

The Promise FastTrak "trick BIOS RAID" controller is not well
supported on Linux by Promise, and definately not OSS.  But several
people have been working on a hacked version.

Regardless, I highly recommend you _never_ use a "trick BIOS RAID"
controller under Linux.  Most of the time, they are only supported
as regular IDE controllers (because that's all they are!), and the
Linux kernel's software RAID subsystem is faster (because the "trick
BIOS" controller is really still using your CPU, so they are really
still "software RAID").  The only reason the majority of these
controllers exist is because MS-DOS (including MS-DOS 7.x aka
Windows 9x/ME) lack a software RAID subsystem.

If you want _real_ "hardware" IDE RAID, check out:

  - 3Ware (http://www.3ware.com)
    custom, 32-bit "switch" controller, 1MB SRAM (static RAM)
    stock Linux support since 2.2.15 (3w-xxxx)

  - Adaptec 2400A (http://www.adaptec.com)
    32-bit i960 microcontroller, 16MB DRAM
    former DPT product that uses DPT's I2C interface (dpt_i2c)

  - Promise SuperTrak
    NOTE: "Super"Trak, *NOT* "Fast"Trak
    Unknown microcontroller (i960?), no Linux support

-- TheBS

P.S.  Follow-ups should probably be made to hardware.

-- 
Bryan "TheBS" Smith   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org    chat:thebs413
Engineer  AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc.  http://www.linux-wlan.org
President    SmithConcepts, Inc.    http://www.SmithConcepts.com