On 10 Feb 2010, at 11:14, J. Roeleveld wrote:
On Wednesday 10 February 2010 02:28:59 Stroller wrote:
On 9 Feb 2010, at 19:37, J. Roeleveld wrote:
...
Don't get me started on those ;)
The reason I use Linux Software Raid is because:
1) I can't afford hardware raid adapters
2) It's generally faster then hardware fakeraid
I'd rather have slow hardware RAID than fast software RAID. I'm not
being a snob, it just suits my purposes better.
I don't consider that comment as "snobbish" as I actually agree.
But as I am using 6 disks in the array, a hardware RAID card to
handle that
would have pushed me above budget.
See, for example, eBay item 280459693053.
LSI is also a popular brand amongst Linux enthusiasts.
3ware have been taken over by LSI and their support has deteriorated
over the last few months, but 3ware cards come with transferrable 3
year warranty, expiry date identifiable by serial number, and you will
often find eBay cards are still in warranty.
It is planned for a future upgrade (along with additional disks),
but that
will have to wait till after another few expenses.
If speed isn't an issue then secondhand prices of SATA RAID
controllers (PCI & PCI-X form-factor) are starting to become really
cheap. Obviously new cards are all PCI-e - industry has long moved to
that, and enthusiasts are following.
My mainboard has PCI, PCI-X and PCI-e (1x and 16x), which connector-
type would
be best suited?
PCI-e, PCI-X, PCI in that order, I *think*.
PCI-X is very good, IIRC, it may be fractionally faster than PCI-e,
but I get the impression it's going out of fashion a bit on
motherboards.
PCI-e is very fast and is the most readily usable on new & future
motherboards. It is what one would choose if buying new (I'm not sure
if PCI-X cards are still available), and so it is the most expensive
on the secondhand market.
Some 3ware PCI-X cards (eg the 9500S at least) are usable in regular
PCI slots, obviously at the expense of speed. Not sure about other
brands.
Avoid 3ware 7000 & 8000 series cards - they are now ancient, although
you can pick them up for £10.
Also, I believe a PCI-e 8x card would work in a PCI-e 16x slot, but
does this
work with all mainboards/cards? Or are some more picky about this?
No idea, sorry. I would have thought so, but I don't use PCI-e here yet.
I would be far less invested in hardware RAID if I could find regular
SATA controllers which boasted hot-swap. I've read reports of people
hot-swapping SATA drives "just fine" on their cheap controllers but
last time I checked there were no manufacturers who supported this as
a feature.
The mainboard I use (ASUS M3N-WS) has a working hotswap support
(Yes, I tested
this) using hotswap drive bays.
Take a disk out, Linux actually sees it being removed prior to
writing to it
and when I stick it back in, it gets a new device assigned.
This is very interesting to know.
This would be very useful here, even if just for auxiliary use -
swapping in a drive from another machine just to clone it, backup or
recover data, for instance.
If I found an Atom-based board that did hotswap on its normal SATA
ports I would probably purchase one in a flash.
On a different machine, where I tried it, the whole machine locked
up when I
removed the disk (And SATA is supposed to be hotswappable by
design...)
This is what I would normally expect, at least from when I last
checked a year or two ago.
AIUI SATA by design *may* be hotswappable at the *option* of the
manufacturer.
(Please correct me if I am mistaken)
Stroller.
