Re: Which SATA Combos To Consider?

["Johny Ågotnes" <johny@agotnes.com>]

Just a quick note on the SX4 Card - I have seen data corruption on 
hard-drives too in the simplest possible setup, so I'd stay clear of 
that card until further notice.

Mine is sitting in a cupboard right now, awaiting 'someone' (me, if I 
get some time to learn low-level kernel drivers) debugging the issue.

Basically, accessing two drives via this card causes corruption, I had 
it working ok when I only accessed 1 drive, which is kinda pointless...

:)J



Ryan Bourgeois wrote:
> Danny Cox wrote:
> 
>>     I've been mostly lurking here for awhile now, just seeing how things
>> are going.  I've seen various drives on a blacklist, and various
>> controllers that do this or that well, but have problems doing foo.
>> There also seem to have been a Strange Interaction as well, but that's a
>> fuzzy memory at best.
>>
>>     So, my question is: if YOU were to purchase an SATA setup brand new,
>> what would you specify?  Which drives, motherboards, and PCI cards would
>> you recommend that just work?
>>
>>     I don't even mean "work like a Mercedes", by which I mean almost
>> perfection.  I mean like a Chevy.  I don't mind a little tinkering to
>> get it right, but I want my disk subsystem to be solid thereafter!  I've
>> got important stuff here!  Like my wife's backup; NEVER lose your wife's
>> backup (shudder)!
>>
>>     If SATA isn't ready for consumerdom, I'd like to know that too.  This
>> just isn't for Jeff and Bart either.  I'd like to hear success stories
>> from those whose systems just hum along all the time!
>>
>>     Thanks in advance!
>>
>>  
>>
> On my file server I run the Highpoint RocketRAID 1640.  It's a software 
> RAID five card.  Basically it's just a PCI card with two HPT374 chips 
> each with two SATA plugs (a total of four plugs).  So it's a no frills 
> PATA card with SATA converters onboard.  I run three Western Digital 
> 120gb SATA drives on it with a Linux Software RAID 5 array on them.  
> Aside from the fact that it's a PATA card at heart (so it doesn't use 
> libata), my only complaint is that it's slow.  It's stable as a rock, 
> though, I've had no problems with the card or drives.
> 
> I have a Promise SX4 that I tried.  I had those same three drives 
> connected to it, but I was having some problems with the array when I 
> was using it.  It had a tendency to corrupt the filesystem, for some 
> reason.  I was having other problems at the time, though, so it could be 
> unrelated to the card I was using.  If I get time and money I may try 
> and set up an array on the card for testing.
> 
> Anyways, out of personal preference, I go with Western Digital hard 
> drives.  For SATA cards, the Promise TX cards seem pretty reliable.  I 
> have an onboard TX2 on my main machine running a WD Raptor.  I've had 
> absolutely no problems with it and libata.  Or in Windows, for that matter.
> 
> I haven't used any other cards or drives, so I cannot offer anything in 
> that direction.
> 
> -Ryan Bourgeois
> 
> 
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