SCSI Raid

[Crusty]

Okay, here is the deal. I am running out of space in my tower, i've filled up all the drive bays with various hdd's optical drives, and my live drive. Now that I am working two jobs this summer, I am VERY interested in using my SCSI drives in nice little SCSI raid setup. I will have at least 5-6 Maxtor Atlas 10kIII 18gb drives that I want to put into RAID 5.

I want to use an external enclosure, but the problem is that my drives are 68-pin + power, not 80-pin so I don't know the possibilty of using a backplane. If I need to, I can pull together a different case and powersupply to use as my enclosure.

So, does anyone have any recommendations for SCSI Raid cards, I only have 32-bit pci slots in my current mobo, but there are plans to provide a 64-bit slot in the near future though.

 

[sharkeeper]

Entry level: LSi MegaRAID 320-2.
Mid level++: LSi MegaRAID 320-2X.
Mid level PCI-E: LSi MegaRAID 320-2E.

The first one will take up to 256MB SDRAM.
The others will take DDR up to 512MB. (1GB planned with FW upgrade)

If you upgrade memory and want to use write back cache function (highly recommended to maximise RAID5 throughput on inbound) the use of a battery backup unit (BBU) is strongly recommended!

You can mount the drives in an external enclosure you just will not have hot swap (SCA) capability. You can find enclosures and RAID cards here and here and here.

The 320-2X is PCI-X ONLY! It will NOT work in a standard PCI slot. If you plan to use a standard desktop mainboard, the 320-2E is the ticket. Modern desktop boards have PCI-E and this will be very fast and keep your processor very busy. So busy you will want two. I guess the dual core ship has arrived just in time.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: sharkeeper
Entry level: LSi MegaRAID 320-2.
Mid level++: LSi MegaRAID 320-2X.
Mid level PCI-E: LSi MegaRAID 320-2E.

The first one will take up to 256MB SDRAM.
The others will take DDR up to 512MB. (1GB planned with FW upgrade)

If you upgrade memory and want to use write back cache function (highly recommended to maximise RAID5 throughput on inbound) the use of a battery backup unit (BBU) is strongly recommended!

You can mount the drives in an external enclosure you just will not have hot swap (SCA) capability. You can find enclosures and RAID cards here and here and here.

The 320-2X is PCI-X ONLY! It will NOT work in a standard PCI slot. If you plan to use a standard desktop mainboard, the 320-2E is the ticket. Modern desktop boards have PCI-E and this will be very fast and keep your processor very busy. So busy you will want two. I guess the dual core ship has arrived just in time.

hehe, exactly the post I was looking for

One question though, why the need for dual channel if I don't plan on having enough drives to reach the 320MB/s capacity?

 

[sharkeeper]

One question though, why the need for dual channel if I don't plan on having enough drives to reach the 320MB/s capacity?

The better ones start at with two channels!

Yes you can add the 320-1 to the list which is truly entry level. This one does not have upgradeable cache (64MB) but WILL work nicely unlike <cough>Adaptec<cough> products. People think I'm an Adaptec basher but the truth is I've used their products and the performanc isn't there. They're the Mazda Miata of HBA's. They look nice and meet the requirements but performance is nothing worth writing home about.

Perhaps the 320-2 should be mid level and the others mid to high level etc. I'm just spoiled I suppose.

 

[Crusty]

Hehe, yeah I saw those prices and wasn't really prepared to spend THAT much on the card.

Whatever I get will sure beat the hell out of my current AAA-131UW

Although im pleased to say that 3 Atlas 10k III drives in RAID 0 read/write at 80MB/s

 

[Zepper]

Among the suppliers below you will find all the special cables, pass-thru connectors, etc. to turn almost any PC case into an external SCSI raid case (for 68-pin drives):

Here are some good SCSI vendors:

http://www.hypermicro.com (may offer free ground shipping if you mention www.storagereview.com - check the SR site for the latest offer)
http://www.centrix-intl.com
http://www.pc-pitstop.com (offers PayPal as a payment option)
http://www.scsi4me.com (ditto)
http://www.etech4sale.com
and I can usually find stuff (like drives, cables and adapters) for low bucks on eBay.

.bh.