Hallo!
I am choosing (probably from ebay) a sata adapter to connect four newer
generation sata disks to little older computer (ibm x200, with 32bit pci
slots) to make myself an home-made storage for home use backup. I have
not yet decided whether to use for it openbsd or debian. People
recommended sil3124 chip based sata controllers for linux which come
also with 32bit pci 4 sata port flavors.
I checked
http://www.openbsd.org/i386.html#hardware
and saw there that the following silicon images are supported
Silicon Image SiI3112 (including ATI IXP SATA), SiI3512, SiI3114
but to make sure i would like to ask if this sil3124 chip is also
working under openbsd now or maybe some near time in the future? Or what
model is so to say classic openbsd sata controller which is also sold
nowdays?
And if somebody shares from their experience how reasonable is to put
together PIII generation 32bit pci computer from year of 2002 with new
sata controller and new harddisks. And how much it practically makes
difference to distribute four disks between one such four port sata
controller or two two port sata controllers in terms of performance?
At the moment i am thinking of backup solution but if it is performing
very well then i expect to use the same solution for nfs file server
also, though it needs a second thought how much to separate the two.
Best regards
Imre
PS I intend to use those sata controllers only as sata controllers and
use software raid, e.g. not their on-chip raid features.
