RE: ATA66 Raid

[Peter Frischknecht]

Title: RE: ATA66 Raid

You are very welcome for the reply.

 

Your questions:

1. I purchased mine from : http://www.thelinuxstore.com/perl-bin/index.pl?catid=66

 

2. The specs you saw are outdated.  In fact, the PDF document that describes the card is outdated.  If you go to their Web site(www.3ware.com), you will see the announcements for ata66 support.

 

3. Yes, you can do multiple arrays, but you can only install 1 hard drive per channel.  This has to do with the fact that a dead IDE drive kills the entire channel (so much for redundancy then).  3Ware sells 2, 4 and 8 channel versions of their escalade line.  They are excellent boards.

 

The coolest thing about the escalade is the fact that Linux really does treat the controller as a Generic mass storage controller with whatever storage is attached to it.  The Escalade hides the actual hard-drives from Linux reporting only on the final available hard drive space.  In fact, Linux thinks that it is dealing with a SCSI controller.

 

In any case, I struggled with Linux Raid, and I got it running with the FastTrak.  But software RAID is slower and MUCH more complicated to install and maintain. 

 

I am very happy with my decision to dump the Promise controller.

 

Don't hesitate in contacting me if you have any questions.

Peter Frischknecht
Empowering Solutions, Inc.
http://www.empoweringsolutions.com
(864)654.6544 x103 Phone
(864)654.0022      Fax

-----Original Message-----
From: Bryan Batchelder [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 12:04 PM
To: 'Peter Frischknecht'
Subject: RE: ATA66 Raid

Hi peter, thanks for the reply.

My questions:

1.  Best place to buy the 3ware escalade hardware?  Preferably online.
2.  The specs I saw say ATA33 is the interface for the card...not ATA66
3.  Can you do multiple arrays?  or does teh card just present one array of however many drives are attached?

Thanks for your help,
--b

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Peter
Frischknecht
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 11:00 AM
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subject: FW: ATA66 Raid

I would just go with 3Ware.
For $100 you can get a true hardware, 2 IDE 66 drive, RAID 1 or 0
configuration.
With Hard drives as cheap as $260 for a 60Gig drive, you can have a
redundant 60Gig RAID 1 system for under $700!!(including hot swap trays)

I bought the FastTrak and it now sits on my shelf. 
It is a piece of crap.

Don't hesitate in contacting me if you have any questions.

Peter Frischknecht
Empowering Solutions, Inc.
http://www.empoweringsolutions.com
(864)654.6544 x103 Phone
(864)654.0022      Fax

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Frost [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 10:37 AM
To: Bryan Batchelder
Cc: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subject: Re: ATA66 Raid

On Tue, 6 Jun 2000, Bryan Batchelder wrote:

> Hi guys--
>      
>       I am setting up a small server (its an old dual PentiumPro 180 rig),
> and its main job is just serving files.  I want to throw in 3 or 4 30GB
> Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM ATA66 drives.  What is the best ATA66 card to
buy?
> Promise?  I have a friend who set up a promise card and he said it kept
> crashing on him (once a day)
>
>       Are there any hardware raid ATA66 cards that have drivers for Linux?
> The FastTrak66 doesn't yet (that I know of).
>
>       How about cheap SCSI RAID?  I have a VA Research box with a Mylex
> controller....anything cheaper?
>
>       I was thinking about buying an adaptec 29160N (the 32bit PCI card)
> and a few 18GB Barracude 18XL drives.  How about that setup?
>
>       I am not so much worried about speed as I am reliability.  But I
> want either ATA66 or SCSI, and if I go SCSI I might as well go SCSI 160,
> right?

        That depends on how much you want to spend.  Personally I've found
that folks around have some nice intel dual-ppro boards w/ onboard SCSI
usually for pretty cheap and they've been rock solid for me.  The only
problem is that they want 168pin EDO ECC DIMMs, which can sometimes be a
pain to get, though I guess you might already have them.
        I'd then probably say software raid w/ the latest raid patches, if
you're familiar enough w/ kernels to not have trouble patching them.

                Stephen