Re: [expert] raid and mandrake
On Sunday 11 November 2001 10:14 pm, you wrote: civileme wrote: On Saturday 10 November 2001 04:11 pm, Bill Kenworthy wrote: With the release of motherboards such as the ABIT KT7A-raid (highpoint chip) and and addons like the promise ide raid cards, will Mandrake be supporting these boards out of the box in the next version - 8.2 (that is, install and boot from the raid device) BillK Look, it is software RAID with a $30 extra price tag for a BIOS add-on, and it is secret, proprietary, etc. It is software RAID and linux software RAID is superior, because it offers RAID 0, 1, 4, and 5 with non-identical disks while these fake hardware RAIDs offer RAID 0 and 1 on identical disks. There is a project for some GPL support so people can read their WinRAID partitions off this junk, but calling it junk is probably being kind. Check at linux-ide.org for a link to the project and see what the actual overall linux support is at www.linux-ide.org/chipsets.html OF course if the project is successful, we will probably try to include it, but mostly for those who have Windows partitions under RAID0 that they want to access. It is easier, and the performance is better to use linux software RAID, even with these chipsets and their extra PROM around. Civileme Civileme, With respect, everytime this subject has come up, you've been nothing short of hostile about it. I admit that the Promise card is NOWHERE near the efficiency of a SCSI raid card nor is it up to par with a $400 ide raid card such as the 3ware Escalade card; however it's NOWHERE NEAR THE PRICE. I have used the Promise ide raid card and it DOES improve performance - like it or not. You compare to linux software raid; Windows also has a software raid built into NT and it works great - as long as you're booted into WINDOWS. Do you see what I'm getting at here?? I would venture to say, that at least half the people running linux are doing it on a multi-boot machine - if I use linux software raid, what does that do when I'm booting into Windows? Or vise-versa? I have used the Promise raid card on a multi-boot machine with redhat 7 and windows 2000 and windows 98 all on the same set of striped drives and ALL of the os's get to take advantage of the speed increase. There is also great documentation online about how to hack a promise 66 controller card into a raid card (the type I use) and you've dropped your cost even more. I'm sorry yell so much, but please realize that not everyone can run out and spend $400 on a raid card and your answer DOES NOT serve everyone's purpose. Isn't Linux about being resourceful and thinking of creative new ways of getting things done? Since that card is a cheap answer for quite a few people, why not entertain the idea of supporting it? Thanks for your time, Mike Exellent reply - my thoughts exactly. Incidentally Highpoint have released binary drivers for RH 7 What are the chances of using these with MDK 8.1 ?? Rob Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] raid and mandrake
On Sunday 11 November 2001 05:12 am, Tom Brinkman wrote: On Saturday 10 November 2001 10:55 pm, Bill Kenworthy wrote: Are there stats to backup the fact that linux software raid is faster than the highpoint chips+linux software raid - I have not seen any articals to that effect http://www.mandrakeforum.org/article.php?sid=450lang=en I'd want Civileme to respond to your speed query rather than try to speak for him. I would add tho, that the win-raid fad that many popular boards came out with a while back, requires a pcb design that actually introduces many problems. I believe it is at the heart of the much (over)hyped VIA-IDE 'bug' problems. Fortunately this win-raid kludge fad appears to have died out with mostly clueless windoze users being the majority of those who got snookered. Most from reading favorable win-raid motherboard reviews on otherwise respectable windoze hardware sites. eg, Tom's Hardware, Anand, Ars Technica, etc. There is nothing to indicate that RAID0 under linux software RAID would be any slower or faster than RAID0 on one of the HPT or Promise RAID controllers. If you want higher performance on that, you need real hardware. Of course these hardware sites reviewed RAID favorably because it gave some performance hains in Windows over the regular stuff, but realize that these are basically WinRAID controllers. Obviously if many windows users have the setup, and feel the need to access their WinRAID partition (yeah singular--you get _one_ RAID partition with these controllers) and use dual-boot, a project would be in order to assist them, but notice it is not by commercial distributors. Even the linux-ide project has no personnel involved. Andre Hedrick wrote quite an interesting letter about this junk on kernel traffic, more than a year ago, as you can discover from the link Tom posted. For right now, the Promixe RAID controllers are supported for one drive per channel, as regular controllers, and the HPTs seem to work somewhat better as regular controllers. There is a supported hardware IDE RAID documented at www.linux-ide.org and it does work very well indeed. It is a tad on the expensive side, but it could work wonders in limited space (one device runs two 2.5 notebook size drives as a RAID0 or RAID1 totally transparent to the system in a single 3.5 bay--great for a high-reliability thin box... Civileme QA team Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] raid and mandrake
civileme wrote: On Sunday 11 November 2001 05:12 am, Tom Brinkman wrote: On Saturday 10 November 2001 10:55 pm, Bill Kenworthy wrote: Are there stats to backup the fact that linux software raid is faster than the highpoint chips+linux software raid - I have not seen any articals to that effect http://www.mandrakeforum.org/article.php?sid=450lang=en I'd want Civileme to respond to your speed query rather than try to speak for him. I would add tho, that the win-raid fad that many popular boards came out with a while back, requires a pcb design that actually introduces many problems. I believe it is at the heart of the much (over)hyped VIA-IDE 'bug' problems. Fortunately this win-raid kludge fad appears to have died out with mostly clueless windoze users being the majority of those who got snookered. Most from reading favorable win-raid motherboard reviews on otherwise respectable windoze hardware sites. eg, Tom's Hardware, Anand, Ars Technica, etc. There is nothing to indicate that RAID0 under linux software RAID would be any slower or faster than RAID0 on one of the HPT or Promise RAID controllers. If you want higher performance on that, you need real hardware. Of course these hardware sites reviewed RAID favorably because it gave some performance hains in Windows over the regular stuff, but realize that these are basically WinRAID controllers. Obviously if many windows users have the setup, and feel the need to access their WinRAID partition (yeah singular--you get _one_ RAID partition with these controllers) and use dual-boot, a project would be in order to assist them, but notice it is not by commercial distributors. What?? That last sentence is absolutely cryptic! What do you mean that you only get one RAID partition with these controllers? Once you setup the array, you can partition the drives as though they were only one drive - you can have as many partitions as you can without raid. Even the linux-ide project has no personnel involved. Andre Hedrick wrote quite an interesting letter about this junk on kernel traffic, more than a year ago, as you can discover from the link Tom posted. For right now, the Promixe RAID controllers are supported for one drive per channel, as regular controllers, and the HPTs seem to work somewhat better as regular controllers. That depends on what controller you're talking about. The fasttrak 66/100 add-on cards work the same as your existing ide controllers; two devices per channel - two channels onboard. When you create the array, you have the choice of 2, 3 or 4 ide devices in that array. There is a supported hardware IDE RAID documented at www.linux-ide.org and it does work very well indeed. It is a tad on the expensive side, but it could work wonders in limited space (one device runs two 2.5 notebook size drives as a RAID0 or RAID1 totally transparent to the system in a single 3.5 bay--great for a high-reliability thin box... Civileme QA team Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[expert] raid and mandrake
With the release of motherboards such as the ABIT KT7A-raid (highpoint chip) and and addons like the promise ide raid cards, will Mandrake be supporting these boards out of the box in the next version - 8.2 (that is, install and boot from the raid device) BillK Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] raid and mandrake
On Saturday 10 November 2001 04:11 pm, Bill Kenworthy wrote: With the release of motherboards such as the ABIT KT7A-raid (highpoint chip) and and addons like the promise ide raid cards, will Mandrake be supporting these boards out of the box in the next version - 8.2 (that is, install and boot from the raid device) BillK Look, it is software RAID with a $30 extra price tag for a BIOS add-on, and it is secret, proprietary, etc. It is software RAID and linux software RAID is superior, because it offers RAID 0, 1, 4, and 5 with non-identical disks while these fake hardware RAIDs offer RAID 0 and 1 on identical disks. There is a project for some GPL support so people can read their WinRAID partitions off this junk, but calling it junk is probably being kind. Check at linux-ide.org for a link to the project and see what the actual overall linux support is at www.linux-ide.org/chipsets.html OF course if the project is successful, we will probably try to include it, but mostly for those who have Windows partitions under RAID0 that they want to access. It is easier, and the performance is better to use linux software RAID, even with these chipsets and their extra PROM around. Civileme Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [expert] RAID for mandrake
On Monday 15 January 2001 08:20, you wrote: Dear Experts, I'm currently using Redhat 7.0 on one of my computers because I have the Promise Fasttrak 66 RAID controller installed and I don't have a driver for Mandrake. I like using Redhat, but I would like to be able to install Mandrake on this computer so that my computers will be using the same versions of Linux. The README that came with the drivers that I loaded for Linux said that I could use these modules with any version as long as I compiled that kernel against those modules; what does that mean? I've recompiled kernels in the past, but what does it mean to compile the kernel AGAINST a certain module? Anyone feel like giving detailed directions? Thanks in advance, Mike Are they binary-only drivers? If you have source you need to recompile the kernel with the source included in the source tree, and include it in the config, probably with a "Yes" not a "module." Civileme
