Did there driver compile straight into Gentoo okay? Out of interest from a kernel config perspective what do you have enabled to get the driver to work? scsi_mod, sd_mod, ide-scsi?
TIA P. On Wed, 2003-06-25 at 21:22, Patrick Nehls wrote: > 3ware www.3ware.com makes what are generally considered to be the best (an > almost *only*) hardware IDE RAID cards. They are supported under linux since > the 2.2.15 kernel. They are not cheap like Highpoint or Promise based cards > since they actually do hardware RAID rather than software. > > Since it's hardware based you can run a fast RAID system on slow CPUs. > > Patrick > > -----Original Message----- > From: --[ UxBoD ]-- [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 3:08 PM > To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' > Subject: RE: [gentoo-user] 3 TB ATA RAID server > > > Hi ... > > Just a question about the RAID cards you are using. Who makes them? Are they > supported under Gentoo Linux? I have just brought a ITE RAID card and cannot > get the driver to compile - so I have 2 x 120GB HDs sat idle at the moment > :( > > TIA > > On Wed, 2003-06-25 at 18:27, Patrick Nehls wrote: > > You won't get much/any performance increase striping the RAIDs in > > Linux. The amount of data that the RAID5 will need, especially with 2, > > 8 drive arrays will absolutely swamp your PCI bus already. If you are > > doing gigabit transfers on top of this your PCI bus will be hit even > > harder. > > > > With 8MB files you probably want a larger stripe size for performance > > reasons but the 3ware cards don't have much of a selection in that > > area (we use a 7500-8 at work for a 1.4TB array of 200GB Western > > Digitals). > > > > I'm not too familiar with the ins and outs of filesystem performance > > in Linux but I'd choose a journaling one just for the extra > > reliability. Neither Samba nor NFS add too much overhead to file > > transfers imho so either should work for your case. However if you > > have a Win2k client I'd just run Samba since the Windows box needs > > extra software to do NFS. If the IRIX box doesn't have samba then it > > may be easiest to run both on the server. > > > > 3ware recommends sticking the card into a 64bit PCI slot for best > > performance. We're using it in a 32bit slot on a standard Intel 845G > > P4 motherboard and haven't had any major performance issues though the > > data is not heavily used (mostly a huge live backup server). If that > > Aopen board has 64 bit PCI slots, definitely use them. If it doesn't, > > with 2 large RAID arrays in one machine, you should consider the extra > > expense of a new motherboard with 64 bit PCI, processor, and RAM. > > > > What case are you planning on putting this in? You can find some 3-4U > > rackmout cases with 16 hot swappable IDE drive bays but they aren't > > cheap. If you have a lower budget maybe you are planning on building > > one? You will need some beefy power supplies for 16+ drives. > > > > Finally, this isn't necessarily important for you, but many of the new > > Intel 865PE and 875P based P4 motherboards have onboard gigabit LAN > > that uses a new bus to offload all LAN traffic from the overburdened > > PCI bus. In your case, this would likely give you a good performance > > boost. So ideally I'd grab an 865PE or 875P motherboard with the CSA > > Lan and 64bit PCI slots (if it exists). Er though I haven't checked to > > see if the kernel supports these LAN cards. > > > > Please email me privately if you have any questions. > > > > Good luck! It sounds like a fun project. :) > > Patrick > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Karl Huysmans [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 10:09 AM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: [gentoo-user] 3 TB ATA RAID server > > > > > > Hi all, > > > > I am planning to build a file server running Gentoo, and before I > > start buying equipment, I would like to ask if anyone had any > > experience with a similar setup. > > > > Here's the challenge: > > > > I need to provide around 3 TB of disk space with a limited budget. The > > files I need to store are all HD video frames, typically in SGI > > format, file size around 8 MB each. The files will be accesed from an > > SGI IRIX workstations and from one Win2K box. All these have Gigabit > > ethernet interfaces. > > > > Some questions. > > > > -I really don' t have the budget to do this with SCSI disks, so I > > planned to use two 3ware 7500-8 ATA cards and WD 250 GB drives. I > > would configure the 3wares for RAID-5, this would give me > > approximately 3.4 TB with 16 drives. I would then like to stripe the > > two RAID's with Linux software RAID0, hoping this could crank up the > > perfomance a little bit. Has anyone ever done this ? What would be the > > best chunk size for the software stripe, knowing that all files will > > be approximately 8 MB in size? > > > > -Which file system would give the best results for this setup (ext3, > > reiser,xfs ...) ? Is there any way to tweak these files systems for > > optimal perfomance (8MB files) ? > > > > -Any tips to boost network performance ? Any tips for Samba and nfs ? > > Or is there another network protocol I could try ? > > > > -I have an AOpen dual PIII board available with two PIII-800 > > processors. Would this be enough, or could I have better performances > > using a newer board (dual Athlon, Xeon, ...) ? > > > > -How important is memory (speed, size) for this application? How much > > should I use ? > > > > Any help or ideas greatly appreciated ! -- // --[ UxBoD ]-- // 2.4.20-gentoo-r5 // Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.53GHz // // gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys 56ED1CB5 //
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