Simple question about mdadm and software RAID:

tylerd75 · n00b Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 52 Location: Norway

I'm about to setup a server for a small business. They're not interested in spending much money, so I'm thinking Software RAID. Now I've bought a Promise FastTrack 100 TX2 LD controller for testing, and it worked fine.
So here comes the question: Does software raid (mdadm) work on any disc controller? In other words, can I buy a normal IDE controller to do this?
And the next question: IF I need a RAID controller, do you know if HPT 372A will work with the HPT372 drivers?
Thanks in advance for any response!

Cheers,
TylerD

ecosta · Guru Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 477 Location: Brussels,BE

I believe you can use any controler (IDE,SATA,SCSI) to do the job as long as your kernel can support it. mdadm is just a layer that goes on top of the kernel so you should be fine.

Comment anyone?

Ed.
_________________
Linux user #201331
A8N-SLI Delux / AMD64 X2 3800+ / 1024 MB RAM / 5 x 250 GB SATA RAID 1/5 / ATI Radeon X700 256MB.

vampares · n00b Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 28

you can put usb flash sticks in raid5 if you like but usb isn't a dual-channel interface so its slow or only as fast as one.

Grooby · n00b Joined: 08 Jun 2005 Posts: 47

mdadm will work on any software raid.
I have a server at home that is hooked up to 8 drives across SATA, onboard IDE and another promise IDE card.

tylerd75 · n00b Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 52 Location: Norway

Thanks for your replies! But to a related question:
Are there any actual hardware raid controllers for IDE/SATA devices?
By hardware RAID I mean where the functionality of the controller is used the same way as on SCSI RAID?
i.e. where two drives are automatically seen as one striped (or mirrored) drive? (after installing the driver...)

Cheers,
TylerD

markiv7 · n00b Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 1 Location: Vermont

Hey Tyler,

There are several hardware RAID controllers for SATA.

I just got 4 new 250Gb SATA drives to upgrade my server from 4x160Gb IDE's.

The biggest decision I had to make was whether I wanted to go with a HW RAID controller...they are pretty much over $250.

The controller I wanted to get was only available for PCI-X, and I don't have any of those coming out of service soon, so that made up my mind ;-)

Here is one example from the only place I have gotten hardware for the last seven years:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816118011

Hope this helps,

Billy

tylerd75 · n00b Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 52 Location: Norway

I've found 3 or 4 hardware raid controllers, but I went for software raid on SATA2 discs.
Mdadm worked extreemly well, and was easy to setup.
Since I bought a software raid controller, I thought I had to setup my discs in a mirrored array as well as using mdadm...
But after changing the mirrored array into two JBOD drives the writing of the boot sector to each disc went much better.
Got the gentoo system up and running on 5 md devices now.

Cheers,
TylerD