I am currently using a Mylex ExtremeRAID controller with good results. If
you haven't been to this page, please check it out:
http://www.dandelion.com/Linux/DAC960.html
And if you haven't read this FAQ, do so also:
http://www.dandelion.com/Linux/README.DAC960
Here is an excerpt about remote commands to the Mylex adapter:
Configuration commands for controller N are available via the special file
/proc/rd/cN/user_command. A human readable command can be written to this
special file to initiate a configuration operation, and the results of the
operation can then be read back from the special file in addition to being
logged to the system console. The shell command sequence
echo "<configuration-command>" > /proc/rd/c0/user_command
cat /proc/rd/c0/user_command
is typically used to execute configuration commands. The configuration
commands are:
...
This requires that you have the controller bios upgrades and the latest
driver/utilities. Please read the FAQ if you haven't already.
Also, I know that at least with the ExtremeRAID, you can have each channel
at a different speed. For instance, populating one chain with LVD and the
other chain with SE U2W drives, but why would you want to do that?
Currently, there is little difference between the price of LVD drives and
SE drives (at least where I live, in San Jose, CA, USA). Also, I feel the
AcceleRAID 200 or 250 is a good deals (I think around $550 US) when you
put it together with a motherboard that has an on-board LVD U2W SCSI, such
as the Super Micro series boards. Add 8 9 gig or 18 gig LVD drives and
throw them in a rack mountable case, and you have a pretty awesome
database server for under $10,000 IMHO. What more can you ask for?
(besides decent hot swapable LVD enclosures for under $350/each, but that
is another story alltogether.)
-Theron
--
On Tue, 7 Sep 1999, Chris Mauritz wrote:
> > From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue Sep 7 11:50:39 1999
> >
> > What is the most reliable LVD SCSI controler for Linux ?
> >
> > (I use several Buslogic controlers, but as far as I know they don't
> > have an LVD version, which is absolutely necessary for long SCSI chains,
> > and my Buslogic controlers went in an infinite reset loop several times,
> > which raid cannot protect against.
> > I also tested a Mylex AcceleRAID with it's integrated raid software,
> > but it's expensive and not very flexible (you cannot remotely change
> > the raid configuration since the raid configuration program is
> > accessed at boot time only, and as far as I know, you cannot have
> > different scsi chanels use different scsi speeds, and you cannot
> > have a raid set involving disks on several controlers), and lastly
> > their raid sofware is not open so it's hard to trust them. On the
> > other hand, I believe that you can add drives to existing raid sets.)
>
> Normally, I'm a hardcore Buslogic/Mylex supporter, but I've found
> myself in exactly your predicament. I settled on a pile of single
> channel Adaptec U2W controllers and haven't had any issues with
> Redhat 6.0. It seems the Adaptec drivers have gotten better over
> time and they even seem stable with SMP boxes (which wasn't the
> case even a year ago). I'm about to try creating rather huge
> raid 0 and raid 5 sets with 4 50gig barracudas per controller.
>
> I'll post the results to the list. I'm very optimistic about
> the performance given early testing on small numbers of drives.
>
> Chris
>
>
