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Intel U2W SCSI RAID Controller - SRCU21, $55 Delivered

B

BadSweetums

Member
Package2you listing 39 pieces in stock 6/3/02 at 5 PM EDST.

I know U2W is obsolete and over-priced compared to ATA133; but, this is an excellent deal. (if you already have U2W hard drives and/or want to build an enterprise class SCSI RAID array.)

This is a standard 32-bit/33MHz PCI card. (It should be usable with most PCI motherboards) It supports bootable hardware RAID. It uses standard PC100 ECC SDRAM (up to 128MBs) for on-card caching. It supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5 and 10 (aka 1+0 ?). It supports hot-swappable drives and the array can be expanded without backing up and starting over. (If I understand the manual correctly.) It is U2W (80MB/s max) and it does not support anything but hard drives. (No CD-ROM support)

Download documentation and checkout what Intel has to say about it here.
Intel® Server RAID Controller U2-1 Home I especially enjoyed reading the errata list (it ain't perfect)

Windows NT4/2000 support. Linux 6.2 support. (I kinda doubt they are going to update the drivers for XP. The original 2000 drivers were for Server and Advanced Server but I guess they decided enuff workstation users might want one to add 2K Pro support.)

Might be good eBay material. I love the price and the capabilities. Too bad it does not like my SuperMicro/Adaptec P6DBU/ARO-1130U2 setup. I bought one anyway. I wanna take my RAID 5 array with me when I move off my Iron-age 440BX/Pentium III platform. (Twin Gig CPUs + 1 Gig of PC100. It ain't fast but I have been a lot slower.)😎
 
Compgeeks had this on sale a while ago, the down side is that it requires winNT or Win2k Adv Server (no 2k pro, or even 2k server, and I don't think winXP)
 
You may be correct. The Dec 2000 update only qualifies Windows 2000 Advanced Server support. I'll know after I assemble a test system and checkout W2K Pro support.

Sorry, I let Package2You's listing page mislead me. It also states that you can use the SRCU2-1 with Windows XP Pro. I dropped XP after visiting Intel's SRCU2-1 home page.
 
Just a heads up. I have this card, actually got the two from the Geeks. You'll need to flash the bios to get it to work at all in Win2k or above. I wasn't able to get mine to flash properly, mine is now running NT4 server. You'll also need to pick up some sdram for the cache, uses ECC PC100 or 133. Also need a drivers disk for the install, no native support with Windows that I'm aware of. I didn't try to install Win2k, but Intel's website says the bios has to be upgraded to work. I paid $97.10 for 2 delivered, came complete w/Intel packaging, cd, manual. Hope this info helps. I have two 9.1gb Cheetah's striped with one so far and it works great.

Edit. Here's what Intel says:"This is the latest release of software for the Intel® Server RAID Controller U2-1 (SRCU21). This release contains the latest drivers, firmware and utilities. All components of the this software release must be used together. Thus, you must use the "Latest Drivers" firmware, drivers and utilities together."

 
:Q My experiment ended almost as soon as it started. I received the card. I installed it bare (no drives) in an 810e USB XP Pro system. The OS detected and installed it as an Intel I2O SCSI device/card. I thought; cool, there may be hope for this setup.

I then flash updated the bios to ver 3.30 using a Soyo SY-6KL 440LX motherboard. (DOS could not cope with the USB keyboard) Everything seemed to work nicely once I made the Intel flash program floppy bootable to MS-DOS (Win98). I flashed the SRCU21 and the flash program told me it would operate with the new firmware after re-booting.

Shutdown and went to do other stuff for about 3 hours. Rebooted. Dead system. No bios screens from anything. Black screen even using an ISA video card.

Systems will not post when this card is fitted with memory and installed. Systems will boot and not detect the card **without** memory installed. The downloadable troubleshooting guide says this is where you contact Intel Tech Support and send it in for repair. (CAS2(?) PC100 ECC Memory must be installed)

I may try flashing the firmware again after I replace my CAS3 PC133 (pc100 compatible) ECC memory with CAS2 PC100 ECC memory (Intel SRCU21's spec).

I am bummed 🙁 out. I may contact Intel to see if they will RMA it under warranty, but I do not think I will see this card working again soon.
 
😱 An update for anyone bummed by my adventure so far. It's the memory.

I do not think the memory has been damaged or is faulty. But, both of my Kingston 128 MB CAS3 PC133 ECC (PC100 compatible) memory DIMMs cause a no post condition. So, I tried a 64 MB stick of CompUSA PNY throw-away PC100 NON-ECC memory and posted with no problems. Hmm, I thought the card required ECC memory and that the updated bios was supposed to fix a similar no booting problem.

I am now booting and trying to discover whether there is any hope of using this card under Win2K, or WinXP, Pro. The management software may be the next issue. Intel's RAID management software installation utility told me that Win2k Pro is not WinNT Advanced Server while I was being foolish and using my on-line system to try out the Intel driver and software CD that ships with the card.

So, I may have installable hardware and no means to configure it other than the bios routines.

Firmware recovery advice: flash from a hard drive. I kept getting errors, unable to clear the flash memory, while trying to recovery flash from a floppy. I moved the BIN file to my hard drive and succeeded during the first attempt. The recovery flash may or may not have been required. I changed the memory after I started trying to get the card going again with a recovery flash.

Good Luck Fellow Sufferers
 
There are no XP drivers and no XP firmware. XP Pro recognized the I2O processor part of my card and showed it as a working device in Device Manager. I have not succeeded in installing a drive connected to my SRCU21. The SRCU21 sees it. XP does not. I do not think XP has found the LSI SCSI part of the card.

Also, Intel says the latest firmware is ver 3.30. I am not certain that I have the updated W2K firmware loaded. I flashed my card with what Intel labels ver 3.30 firmware and update software on their support pages. It now reports firmware ver 3.24a.007. I will flash again later, but I am hoping that the 3.30 firmware reports itself as 3.24a. I don't really know.

More, I loaded the Win2K drivers to an XP Pro test system and now that system cannot boot into safe mode. This RAID card may not be XP compatible. Or, I may not have loaded the driver properly. I did not install the Win2K miniport driver first. I got XP working first, then I tried installing the SRCU21. No luck as yet.

Another finding. Intel has reorganized their RAID card business around a former customer company, now an Intel Division, named ICP Vortex. ICP (Intelligent Computer Peripherals) now lists the Intel SRCU32 as one of "their" products. I suppose the SRCU21 is well on it's way to becoming a orphaned legacy product.

Sorry to not have any good news to report. 😱
 
hey, did anyone get the card to work in win2k?
bought a card from geeks and firmware 3.3 only kill the card. ( no boot up screen )
have to restore to firmware that come with cd to see the card.

elf
 
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