On Wed, 17 Oct 2001, Rich C wrote: > Promise FastTrack 100 Lite Raid Controller (PDC20265)
Last I heard (which was admittedly some months ago), the driver for these cards was still semi-proprietary, and long-term Linux support was uncertain. Furthermore, these cards are not RAID controllers. They are IDE controllers with special BIOSes. The BIOS implements RAID for real-mode, and in protected mode, it is up to the device driver. The practical upshot is, they are the moral equivalent of "software RAID" (using the Linux 'md' driver, for example), but with a proprietary format and a single vendor. I would recommend just disabling the thing, and using Linux software RAID. If you want a true hardware IDE RAID controller, check out the "Escalade" series from 3Ware. They use a dedicated IDE channel and controller for each disk. All RAID calculations are done in hardware. Full Linux support from the OEM. They wrote and GPL'ed a native driver, which is mainstream as of 2.2.19. For earlier kernels, they provide driver disks. They provide a management interface that runs on Linux as well, albeit closed source. We use them, and they work very well. Yanked a drive cable while the system was running, and it didn't even twitch. They can even send you email if a disk fails. The 6200 (two port) version goes for well under $150, IIRC. They have four and eight port versions as well. They support RAID-0 (striping), RAID-1 (mirroring), and RAID-5 (on models with more than two ports). http://www.3ware.com -- Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ********************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **********************************************************
