Getting rusty on the SCSI... Easy question....

[jonnyGURU]

I need to create a RAID 5 or RAID 0+1 >>AND<< control a tape backup and would like to do so on one SCSI card. A 2-channel (or greater) card will do this right? Because they're essentially two SCSI controllers on one PCB, right?

If that's the case, what's out there? I found this at Adaptec: http://adaptec.com/worldwide/product/pr...SCSI%2fUltra160+SCSI+PCI+HBAs+%26+RAID but I'd like to see if there's anything out there UNDER a grand.

TIA!

 

[Vegito]

most RAID card can not control a tape drive.

 

[Tostada]

I've never seen a RAID 5 card that had a 50-pin connector. The good ones are all multi-channel LVD connections. The one you linked has four 68-pin connectors. You could get a 50 -> 68-pin adapter, but your tape back is proabably Ultra Narrow at best, and you don't want a whole channel dropping down to 20MB sync. This wouldn't be a problem when you can put the tape backup on its own channel like the above 4-channel card, but you don't want a card that expensive. No matter what, you'd probably be better off just getting a cheap old controller just for the tape backup. Even if you have an extra channel, how would you hooke it up? An adapter connected directly to the side of the SCSI adapter would stick out pretty far. You could run an LVD cable to the tape backup then hook the adapter up to the back of the tape drive, but LVD cables aren't cheap. A used controller would be cheaper than the adapter and cable to hook your tape backup up to a 68-pin channel.

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: forcesho
most RAID card can not control a tape drive.

Not true (except for needing a 50-pin connection).

 

[Tostada]

There are 68-pin tape backup devices out there, so if you haven't bought the backup yet you could get one of them. I haven't seen any of them that are LVD, though, and I don't think you could get your hard drives on that channel to run at U320 or U160 on the same channel.

You could get a 68-pin backup and run it on a separate channel, but people generally like to run a RAID 5 on at least 2 channels, so that'd require an expensive card. Even at U320, running more than 4 high-end drives on the same channel is a potential bottleneck.

 

[jonnyGURU]

You guys are as old school as me.

I'm sorry I didn't point out what hardware I plan to use. All of the Certance and Sony SCSI I've used are 68-pin Ultra Wide interfaces. I don't need a 50-pin connector. We're talking AIT-2, 3 or LTO Ultrium.

Now I'm running into the problem where all of the SCSI drives from my vendors are U320!!!

Perhaps I should just go with a pair of SCSI cards, one U160 and one U320.