On Tue, Jan 27, 2004 at 03:16:49PM -0800, Ajay Sharma wrote: > On Sat, 6 Dec 2003, Alan wrote: > > > I'm looking to upgrade my fileserver with a couple or three SATA > > drives and a SATA controller (will upgrade the machine itself with a > > SATA enabled MB sometime next year I think). > > > > I'm wondering what people recommend for offboard SATA controllers. > > I've seen many posts on the forums that SATA raid from the silicon > > image chipset doesn't work, but I'm not worried so much about RAID > > (will probably use SW raid) as just having a stable set of hard drives > > available. > > > > Any suggestions for a cheap (<$100) SATA card (raid or non-raid) that > > is compatible with linux? > > This is an old message, but I just saw it and no one replied. > > I would go with a 3ware SATA card. My gentoo install went smooth with > my WD SATA drive because the 3ware card was detected on boot. Get that, > no funky patches or anything as the 3ware drivers have been in the > default kernel for quite some time. This is my second 3ware card that I > put Linux on and I'm just amazed at how easy it was.
Hey Ajay, thanks for the belated reply. I've also heard good things about 3ware, but when I looked they were a bit above my buget. Since this is going to be a data storage drive using SW raid isn't a big deal, and "nice" (ie: installable) operation isn't essencial. I ended up going with the promise tx150 (I think that's what it is). It was a <$150CND card with sw raid on it (which I played around with a bit and then gave up) and works dandy with the 2.6.* kernel. It's been happily storing my data with software raid1 for the last couple of months. When I upgrade my other server I'll probably look at the 3ware controller though, unless I put in a full new box (which I'd make sure that it would have some sort of raid card in it anyway :) End result, if you're just looking for a plain jane SATA controller and don't mind 2.6, promise works dandy. If your budget is a big larger and you want "real" raid, go 3ware. Those are at least IMHO :) alan -- Alan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - http://arcterex.net -------------------------------------------------------------------- "There are only 3 real sports: bull-fighting, car racing and mountain climbing. All the others are mere games." -- Hemingway -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
