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LodBot
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 Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 10:01 pm Post subject: IDE RAID 1 - which card? |
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I just bought a pair of 250GB WD IDE hard drives, and I plan on running RAID 1. So, my question is what RAID card should I go with? I'm not looking for the best performance card, just something that is easy to get going with gentoo. The max I would spend is about $100. I don't have any 64bit pci slots, so the card would have to be backwards compatible if it was a 64bit. Also, I'm sorry if this topic has come up before, I did a pretty thorough and didn't come up with anything that recommended a card.
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: I would spend up to $150 if I had to. |
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TheCoop
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| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 10:34 pm Post subject: |
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what about software raid? you dont need any raid cards for that...
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LodBot
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| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 11:11 pm Post subject: |
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Software raid? I'm guessing that is a way to have gentoo raid the hard drives without a controller? Can you show me some documentation for this?
Thanks
EDIT: Would it be easy to add another raid 1 configuration down the line with software raid? |
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TheCoop
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| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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yes it would.
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO.html
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95% of all computer errors occur between chair and keyboard (TM)
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LodBot
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| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 11:35 pm Post subject: |
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Awesome! Just in case I decide to do hardware raid, can you recommend a gentoo-compatible card?
Thanks |
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TheCoop
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| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 11:48 pm Post subject: |
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dunno anything about hardware raid, sorry
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95% of all computer errors occur between chair and keyboard (TM)
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Crg
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| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 11:57 pm Post subject: |
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| LodBot wrote: |
Awesome! Just in case I decide to do hardware raid, can you recommend a gentoo-compatible card?
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You won't get a real raid ide raid card cheaply (that I've seen at least).
There is a lot of cards labelled as raid but aren't (ie promise/highpoint).
| LodBot wrote: |
EDIT: Would it be easy to add another raid 1 configuration down the line with software raid?
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Yup. |
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col
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| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 11:57 pm Post subject: |
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| but you cant hotswap with software raid. I think this is important |
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LodBot
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 12:36 am Post subject: |
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| Crg wrote: | You won't get a real raid ide raid card cheaply (that I've seen at least).
There is a lot of cards labelled as raid but aren't (ie promise/highpoint). |
Can you link me to a "real" ide raid card? Also, if promise doesn't truly raid, what does it do?
| col wrote: | | but you cant hotswap with software raid. I think this is important |
If one drive decides to fail, what steps do I have to go through to get a replacement going?
Thanks for all the help. |
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col
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 12:39 am Post subject: |
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| well to hotswap safely using software raid you would need to shutdown the computer. Not so good if its a server. |
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LodBot
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 12:42 am Post subject: |
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| col wrote: | | well to hotswap safely using software raid you would need to shutdown the computer. Not so good if its a server. |
Gotcha.
My motherboard only has 2 ide busses, and further down the road I plan on adding a second raid 1. I think I'm just going to run a hardware raid, so what card would you recommend? |
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ballyn
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 1:42 am Post subject: |
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3ware makes the best "real" ide RAID hardware in terms of compatibility and performance. In fact, the 3Ware Escalade series may still be the only real IDE raid hardware with Linux support today. These run around $120 today for a 2-port (so no raid 5) and go $200+ for 4-ports. If you go with a SATA solution then you do get hotswap, but since you already have your drives I guess that doesn't help you much.
If you want cheap, go with a promise or highpoint solution, which are really "software" raid because they rely on the processor to do all of the work (even though there is a physical component). Alternately, software raid within Linux gets rave reviews... Personally, I use a Promise RAID, but that's only because it's on my motherboard. I would use Linux's RAID before I bought anything but a 3ware card. |
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ballyn
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 1:43 am Post subject: |
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| col wrote: | | well to hotswap safely using software raid you would need to shutdown the computer. Not so good if its a server. |
And that wouldn't be hotswap, then, would it?  |
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LodBot
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:01 am Post subject: |
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| ballyn wrote: | 3ware makes the best "real" ide RAID hardware in terms of compatibility and performance. In fact, the 3Ware Escalade series may still be the only real IDE raid hardware with Linux support today. These run around $120 today for a 2-port (so no raid 5) and go $200+ for 4-ports. If you go with a SATA solution then you do get hotswap, but since you already have your drives I guess that doesn't help you much.
If you want cheap, go with a promise or highpoint solution, which are really "software" raid because they rely on the processor to do all of the work (even though there is a physical component). Alternately, software raid within Linux gets rave reviews... Personally, I use a Promise RAID, but that's only because it's on my motherboard. I would use Linux's RAID before I bought anything but a 3ware card. |
Thanks for the advice  |
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Crg
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:20 am Post subject: |
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| ballyn wrote: |
If you want cheap, go with a promise or highpoint solution, which are really "software" raid because they rely on the processor to do all of the work (even though there is a physical component).
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The physical component being an ide chipset just as is the case with any software raid. |
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Crg
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:32 am Post subject: |
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| LodBot wrote: | | col wrote: | | well to hotswap safely using software raid you would need to shutdown the computer. Not so good if its a server. |
Gotcha.
My motherboard only has 2 ide busses,
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The disks for raid1 should be on different busses as the failure of one disk on the bus can cause the failure of the bus. So ideally you'd be wanting to add another ide controller to handle a second lot of disks.
| LodBot wrote: |
and further down the road I plan on adding a second raid 1. I think I'm just going to run a hardware raid, so what card would you recommend? |
As mentioned below by ballyn, 3ware |
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Crg
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:50 am Post subject: |
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| col wrote: | | well to hotswap safely using software raid you would need to shutdown the computer. Not so good if its a server. |
Hotswap should work (in theory at least  )
| Code: |
#idectl
Unrecognized IDE-channel number
usage: /sbin/idectl ide-channel-nr [off|on|rescan]
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Though you'd want to test it with the exact ide controller and hotswap rack on a machine/data you didn't care about |
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LodBot
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 5:16 am Post subject: |
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| Crg wrote: | | As mentioned below by ballyn, 3ware |
3ware is far too expensive. What do you guys have to say about a Promise tx4000? I understand that it's not a true hardware raid, but it will alow me to get 2 raid 1 setups. I also found drivers for the tx4000. Any other comments? How will this card work with gentoo?
Thanks |
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Crg
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 6:30 am Post subject: |
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| LodBot wrote: |
3ware is far too expensive. What do you guys have to say about a Promise tx4000? I understand that it's not a true hardware raid, but it will alow me to get 2 raid 1 setups.
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What's the point of the tx4000?
I think you're missunderstanding the situation. These so called "raid" cards are just ide contollers. Save yourself some money and avoid them and get an ide controller that isn't labelled as raid.
Software raid will be able to give you as many raid1 setups as you want - it is also more flexible than hardware raid as you specify it on a partition level - ie you can have multiple partitions on the same 2 drives, some as raid1 some as raid0 or whatever configuration you need.
And if you are worried about software raid speed versus hardware, this is the general view on it -> http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/10/7/121
Check out the following: (prices may not be the cheapest just the first match I got on google)
The Promise SATA150 TX4 is ~$53.60:
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For an all serial upgrade, the SATA150 TX4 controller offers four independent SATA ports for up to four Serial ATA/150 drives.
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SATA = 150MB/sec.
The tx4000 is ~$119.16:
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The FastTrak TX4000 provides four independent ATA channels
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ATA/133 = 133MB/sec. |
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LodBot
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 7:56 am Post subject: |
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I've already bought my ide hard drives, so now I have to figure out how to raid them, and from the sounds of it, I should software raid them. The only problem I run into is that my motherboard only has 2 ide busses, so I'm limited to 2 hard drives. Should I buy an ide controller with 2 ide busses for the second raid1 setup?
Thanks again for being patient with my newbism.
EDIT: Something like this... http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=16-102-002&depa=1 ? |
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Crg
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 12:31 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, buying a second ide controller is what you should do, and that promise one is fine (I wouldn't buy promise but that's due to personal bias rather than any technical reason). |
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LodBot
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Crg wrote: | | Yes, buying a second ide controller is what you should do, and that promise one is fine (I wouldn't buy promise but that's due to personal bias rather than any technical reason). |
I'm not going to purchase this card right away because I'm only going to run 1 raid 1 setup, but if I needed more disk space down the line, I would purchase this card along with 2 other drives. Should I buy this card now and run my hard drives off of it, so that way upgrading down the line would be easy? Will this card work well with gentoo?
Thanks again.
EDIT: Can a software raid be setup on installation? Or does it need to be setup after gentoo has been installed? |
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TheCoop
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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it can be set up before you install stuff afaik, all the tools are on the livecd
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95% of all computer errors occur between chair and keyboard (TM)
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Crg
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 7:03 pm Post subject: |
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| LodBot wrote: |
along with 2 other drives. Should I buy this card now and run my hard drives off of it
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I would run your drives off you motherboard's ide controllers, and when you need another couple of disks later add a second controller. |
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LodBot
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Crg wrote: | | I would run your drives off you motherboard's ide controllers, and when you need another couple of disks later add a second controller. |
Will do.
Thanks a lot for the help .
I'll post any further questions. |
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