Hi Peeps! :)
I've been reading the threads and I just want to share my experience with
SATA RAID Controllers (specifically the Promise 20378 based). I know a lot
of you don't want to use the driver from Promise but just to let you know,
the driver does work! ;)
I've done two Promise controlled pc based server (The first using PATA and
the 2nd using SATA) using RH8 and I hadn't had a problem ever after they
where installed... properly that is... took 2 days to have made it work 100%
for my first setup which has been running without restarts or downtime for
almost 2 years already. The second setup, well just read on... :)
Below where the pc based server setup that we did (2 of this actually):
Pentium 4 2.4Ghz HT
Asus board with an intel chipset (forgot the model number hehe)
1Gbps LAN (Built-in)
Promise PATA/SATA RAID Controller (Built-in)
1GB PC400 SDRAM
2 x 80GB 7200RPM SATA Drives (RAID 1 configuration)
RH8 (hehe old kernel but works using 2.4.18-14smp)
THE FIRST DAY! The first time I installed it, I had problems because of the
board configuration especially the 1Gbps lan and the Promise RAID wasn't
supported by the kernel. Few searches on the net and found the drivers that
I needed (I thought they where good). After going through the instructions
for the RAID installation of promise, tried 3-4 times that day and keep
getting errors on the installation. After the last attempt that night, kept
swearing the whole night hehe
THE SECOND DAY! More googling and forum checking. Seems its not just me
having problems, a lot of users of the same board was having problems
because the board was very new, linux distro's didn't recognized the lan and
raid. Turned back to Promise website again for more information and support
for linux driver version and found another driver. Attempted 2
installations and the 3rd time (F**K**G instructions wasn't 100% right), did
my own installation instructions hehe and it worked. FINALLY!! Time for a
burn-in test... Runned some services and a copy of one of our main
application (which was so heavy on the database and the processor) on it for
the overnight burn-in.
THIRD DAY! Hmmm... everything seems working fine... told myself it looks
good then did a shutdown that morning. Thinking it was ready for
deployment, we scheduled a re-installation that afternoon for a final
installation of our application. Then BONG!!!! After we turned it on, the
RAID controller said it encountered an error on boot up. Panicked and did
the restoration via promise interface. Seems ok again after that. Another
burn-in test that night.
FOURTH DAY! Ok, another restart that morning. We thought everythings fine,
we were so busy that we didn't see the boot up message of the RAID, by the
time we turned our attention to the server, RH8 was booting already. Ok so
everything looks good now. Back to being busy that day. By mid-day, we
tried a restart to see if its still ok. After an hour, we noticed that the
HD lights was on almost 100% of the time, we haven't runned any application
or services yet. We observed it for the next 20mins, so seems like
somethings happening with the controller. A restart was in order. Then
BONG!! Again, an error on the RAID configured disk. It seems it was doing
an auto-restoration after linux has started because when we did the manual
restoration it started past the 50% mark already.
FIFTH DAY! Another day of googling and forums... another trip to the
manufacturer's website... another driver download... another installation,
and violla, it seemed the new driver that I downloaded was working this
time. Just a quick note though, the (F**K**G) instructions again wasn't
100% accurate.
NEXT 5 DAYS! Few restarts... 3 days straight burn-in... double checking if
100% working even with our application running.. EUREKA!!! No errors...
FINALLY!! FINALLY!! The server is running 100% ok. Scheduled the 6th day for
a final installation on the server and the 2nd server (very same
configuration).
For the past 9 months, we have not had any problems, downtime, error, what
so ever on the two SATA - RAID controlled linux servers, even if we were
just using a 2.4 kernel (raid drive mounted as scsi by linux). :) Oh, by the
way, I didn't mention the 3-days thinkering for the 1Gpbs lan cards...
that's another story.
Well, that's my story. Actually, I forgot what exactly I changed in the
installation to have made it work. We had so many attempts and we forgot to
document it. We were only able to do the 2nd server setup with no problems
because everythings still fresh on our mind that week hehe.. getting older I
think.. memory getting bad.. hehe.. but hopefully we will still able to
remember if did encounter it again..
Well, have a good day fellow pluggers.. time to sign off now...
Regards,
Rikki T. Vizcarra
