Re: What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

["Joël Bourquard" <numlock@freesurf.ch>]

Mark,

Thanks a lot for your answer...

On Mon, 2004-01-19 at 20:19, Mark Hahn wrote:
> > However, before I rush and order these two Highpoint 1820's ($300), it
> 
> afaikt, HPT's driver is one that plugs into SCSI.  this by itself doesn't
> mean it's bad (since libata and 3ware also do so, and are good).  the problem
> is that it's not clear how well HPT will maintain the driver, updating it 
> when the SCSI layers above it change (or the kernel in general).
> 

I understand your concerns about the future !
Fortunately (at least for me) it won't matter much, because I don't need
top-notch software in the fileserver.

Since we talk SCSI, is it still possible to monitor the S.M.A.R.T health
attributes of the SATA disks when plugged into one of these controllers?
I'd be lost with 16 disks and no smartctl..

By the way, there's something I didn't grasp yet..  is libata a library
which is needed for SATA drivers to run ? Or does libata rather mean
"open-source SATA-to-SCSI driver" ?

In the second case, with a HPT controller there would be no need for
libata, correct ?

> I'm going with promise 4-port cards: most server boards have two PCIX
> buses, it gets painful to put more than 8 disks in a chassis anyway.
> these days, a disk will do 70 MB/s, so expecting 560 MB/s out of a single 
> card is probably over-optimistic anyway.
> 

Good point. With 8 disks, I'd have taken two 4-port controllers too.

> > it might help a lot of people on Linux-RAID... I mean, a 64-bit 133MHz
> > SATA controller with 8 ports, for about $150 is really nice :-)
> 
> I don't mind two cheaper cards for the same thing.  it's easy to argue
> that you shouldn't have the controller as a single point of failure, too.
> 

Indeed. Also if there are two arrays (I think it's needed because of the
2TB limit), one could split the work on the 2 controllers... and on the
two PCI-X bridges :-)

> regards, mark hahn.

Regards
Joël

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