We set up some machines pretty much the same as you:
rackmount, with an ASUS P3B-F mainboard, 4 promise ultra-66 cards,
and 8 Seagate ST328040A drives within hot-swap boxes. We used
a Sliger case (C489-0814-PX-BK), in which everything fits, but
it is a bit tight to route the cables, even using the 24 inch cables.
We got our cables from Micro Firmware (www.firmware.com).
The hot-swap boxes are the ER-4610 from Enhance Technology
(www.enhance-tech.com). They explicitly support DMA66; many boxes don't.
So all I really know is that that combination worked for me. I didn't
see the kind of problems you are reporting, but I agree, it sounds like
cabling problems. Perhaps your cables or hot-swap boxes aren't quite
good enough, or perhaps the drives you use (is that IBM?) are not as
tolerant as the Seagates we used.
I can't say our configuration is ideal. Raidzone is neater but more
expensive and relies on closed software. SCSI solutions can be neater
(e.g., use 3 of the Enlight EN-8700 5-in-3 cases for 15 drives in the same
space) and have better performance and possibly robustness, but also cost more.
Jan Edler
NEC Research Institute
