[KLUG Members] SuSe 9.1 Linux Software RAID

[Mike Williams]

>
> Subject:
> Re: [KLUG Members] SuSe 9.1 Linux Software RAID
> From:
> Rusty Yonkers <therustycook at yahoo.com>
> Date:
> Fri, 9 Jul 2004 08:25:34 -0700 (PDT)
>
> To:
> "The main KLUG mailing list." <members at kalamazoolinux.org>
>
>
>>> Thanks for the tip here. It is 4 IDEs.
>>> 
>>    
>>
>
>Since you have 4 IDE drives have you thought about SATA RAID
>controller card?  I believe that there is an adapter for standard IDE
>drives so that you can connect them to SATA cards.  
>
While this might work, I doubt it would work well.  Sounds like a hacked 
solution, and even if it worked well, everything is likely to fall back 
to the lowest common denominator, in this case parallel ATA.  You'll 
probably lose all the advantages of SATA, with the possible exception of 
the smaller cables.  Why not get a 4-port parallel RAID card, though?  
With this many drives, it's worth getting a dedicated card to control them.

>I have read good
>things about Serial ATA performance, escpecially with multiple drive
>configurations.  I have not set it up myself but am planning on doing
>it soon (as soon as I get the $$$ for it).  I have even read that the
>performance is equal to SCSI with hard drives of the same spindle
>speed and basic performance characteristics (i.e. 7500 rpm Maxtor
>drives).  
>
>I would be really curious to know if anyone has used SATA with Linux
>yet and how well it worked for them.  Does Linux support the SATA
>standard ok?  How does Linux handle hardware level RAID on a SATA
>controller? I have always been more of a fan of hardware based RAID
>but have not setup a Linux system with it yet.
>  
>
You mean like a real card that does RAID 5?  There's not much point in 
calling Promise, DPT and such cards "hardware" raid.  I've heard good 
things about SATA too, but you'd be ahead to run a motherboard if 
possible, and a PCI card if necessary, that supports it without trying 
to patch into the parallel ATA bus.