Linux SATA *HARDWARE* RAID 5

[Loco3KGT]

I need a recommendation for a SATA RAID 5 controller that does hardware RAID *and* works in Linux (kernel 2.6.x).

If anyone has any experience or recommendations or someone to talk to, please let me know ASAP. This is for a local Big Brothers Big Sisters office that is about to be in a very dire situation.

 

[Pariah]

Don't know about Linux compatibility, but since 3Ware is the only manufacturer with true hardware SATA RAID 5, that's the only place you should be looking. If they don't, you're out of luck. Promise, Adaptec, and I think LSI also claim to have hardware SATA RAID 5, but judging by performance, you'd never know it.

 

[Loco3KGT]

We bought a 3ware, it wasn't actually hardware RAID and their support for Linux is crap. They claim to support it, but they don't.

We're being told we bought the wrong card, but after dealing with 3ware's "customer support" we'd just like to avoid them as a whole.

 

[jose]

Why not go scsi ? goto hypermicro.com and look at their 36g atlas3-4 drives for $118 - $144 & a scsi raid5 controller for Mylex Megaraid 320/1 for $350 ..

Regards,
Jose

 

[SUOrangeman]

At work, I'm about to put 4TB of SATA drives in an external RAID but they will connect to a Linux PC via SCSI. I didn't spec out the equipment but I'll post some details when it finally arrives. The PC, which I've already got up an running) is a Dell Precision 630 with 4GB RAM and two 3.2GHz Xeons.

-SUO

 

[Loco3KGT]

we've already got 3 brand new unopened 160GB SATA 7200RPM drives read to roll... we just need a card that works..

 

[Sunner]

We have an Escalade 8506-8 with 8 Hitachi 250 GB drives hooked up in a RAID-5 config, it's working just fine with RedHat 9.
RedHat detected the controller without any trouble, and we haven't had a problem since, the 3DM software works fine as well.

What controller did you purchase? The little experience I've had with 3Ware under Linux has been nothing but good.

 

[jose]

Which distro/version of Linux are you using ?

I Know the older Escalaades worked w/ RedHat 7.3 (32bit pci cards)

You may have to return the sata drives & switch to scsi. It would be better in the long run also.

Regards,
Jose

 

[Loco3KGT]

My mistake fellas, the card the other sysadmin purchased was a HighPoint, not a 3wave. HighPoint doesn't support Linux all that well. Either way, it's being replaced with an Intel card.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Loco3KGT
My mistake fellas, the card the other sysadmin purchased was a HighPoint, not a 3wave. HighPoint doesn't support Linux all that well. Either way, it's being replaced with an Intel card.

Intel makes HW RAID-5 capable cards?

 

[SUOrangeman]

Now that my hardware has arrived, I've got some more details.

I'm running two Momentum 1600s from MpakTech.

http://www.mpaktech.com/DiskStorage_000.html

We;ve got 250GB SATA drives in all 32 bays, which puts it near the 8TB range (before RAID5, I think). Unfortunately, the controllers within the RAID itself can only handle 2TB logical drives. The channels on each RAID are connected to an Adaptec 39160 SCSI controller; roughly 2TB per channel. I was getting 107MB/s with the direct SCSI connection to the RedHat 8 host. I pulled about 70MB/s from a Sun server to those RAIDs via NFS.

$25000 for two RAIDs, another $6K for the Linux host (Dell Precision 650, Dual Xeon 3.2GHz, 4GB RAM, Quadro FX 1000, Audigy 2, 40GB IDE for the OS, hehe).

-SUO