scsi card recommendations

scsi card recommendations

[Michael]

I've just inherited a couple of rack servers that have the buggy dpt 
scsi controllers and I need to replace them with something solid.

Recommendations for a pci scsi-3 controller would be appreciated.

Thanks
Michael
Michael@Insulin-Pumpers.org

Re: scsi card recommendations

[rob]

I like the Mylex AcceleRaid cards.

You can usually find good deals on E-Bay.

I don't know if Mylex cards are currently being develoiped. as Mylex was 
purchased by IBM then LSI logic.


http://www.lsilogic.com/products/stor_prod/raid/mylex.html cards.

 

Michael wrote:

>I've just inherited a couple of rack servers that have the buggy dpt 
>scsi controllers and I need to replace them with something solid.
>
>Recommendations for a pci scsi-3 controller would be appreciated.
>
>Thanks
>Michael
>Michael@Insulin-Pumpers.org
>-
>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
>the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>  
>

Re: scsi card recommendations

[jlewis]

Also, Leonard, who wrote the Linux mylex drivers died.  Has anyone picked 
up maintenance of the Mylex/Buslogic drivers?

On Mon, 20 Oct 2003, rob wrote:

> I like the Mylex AcceleRaid cards.
> 
> You can usually find good deals on E-Bay.
> 
> I don't know if Mylex cards are currently being develoiped. as Mylex was 
> purchased by IBM then LSI logic.
> 
> 
> http://www.lsilogic.com/products/stor_prod/raid/mylex.html cards.
> 
>  
> 
> Michael wrote:
> 
> >I've just inherited a couple of rack servers that have the buggy dpt 
> >scsi controllers and I need to replace them with something solid.
> >
> >Recommendations for a pci scsi-3 controller would be appreciated.
> >
> >Thanks
> >Michael
> >Michael@Insulin-Pumpers.org
> >-
> >To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> >the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> >More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> >  
> >
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 

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Re: scsi card recommendations

[Hermann Himmelbauer]

On Tuesday 21 October 2003 03:40, Michael wrote:
> I've just inherited a couple of rack servers that have the buggy dpt
> scsi controllers and I need to replace them with something solid.

Well, I use a dpt SCSI-Controller for some time now and luckily found no bugs 
at all. I always thought they were quite good quality.

> Recommendations for a pci scsi-3 controller would be appreciated.

I used a Mylex DAC960 and was never really fond of it. Maybe the AcceleRAID 
product line is better, but I don't know.

The RAID-company that produces to my mind the best Hardware RAID solutions is 
ICP Vortex. (Maybe they changed names now as they are bought by some bigger 
company). Anyway, they provide excellent quality hardware and write their 
Linux drivers themselves and contribute the code open to the Linux source 
tree.

The downside of ICP Vortex is that they are quite expensive.

Another thing that I would consider is software RAID. Although software RAID 
consumes far more CPU and is probably slower, to my mind the reliability is 
higher. The Linux RAID-code is thouroughly tested and proved to work.

Moreover there is always one thing to consider: If one of your disks fail - no 
problem, you simply replace it with a new one. If the same model isn't 
available anymore, well you just use a better one.
But what happens if your  HW-RAID controller dies? After 2 years, will there 
still be a replacement available? If not, can you reconstruct your data with 
a different controller? Are there any good Linux drivers for this replacement 
controller?
What happens if there is a firmware bug? With Linux SW-RAID you can post to 
this list and the problem will probably be solved. 

I think if the real issue is data security and availability and not speed, 
SW-RAID is at least something to be considered.

		Best Regards,
		Hermann

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Re: scsi card recommendations

[Michael]

> On Tuesday 21 October 2003 03:40, Michael wrote:
> > I've just inherited a couple of rack servers that have the buggy dpt
> > scsi controllers and I need to replace them with something solid.
> 
> Well, I use a dpt SCSI-Controller for some time now and luckily
> found no bugs at all. I always thought they were quite good quality.
> 
> > Recommendations for a pci scsi-3 controller would be appreciated.
> 
> I used a Mylex DAC960 and was never really fond of it. Maybe the
> AcceleRAID product line is better, but I don't know.
> 
> The RAID-company that produces to my mind the best Hardware RAID
> solutions is ICP Vortex. (Maybe they changed names now as they are
> bought by some bigger company). Anyway, they provide excellent
> quality hardware and write their Linux drivers themselves and
> contribute the code open to the Linux source tree.
> 
> The downside of ICP Vortex is that they are quite expensive.
> 
> Another thing that I would consider is software RAID. Although
> software RAID consumes far more CPU and is probably slower, to my
> mind the reliability is higher. The Linux RAID-code is thouroughly
> tested and proved to work.

I'm running software raid on everything (7 hosts), have since kernel 
2.0 but it's all IDE on individual controllers -- no scsi.

I'm just not familiar with which scsi cards are well supported now 
and don't want an orphan or one with a driver that does not work 
well. I've already managed to lock up these DPT beasts a couple of 
times on each of the servers that have them and would like very much 
to trash them soon. However, I don't want something just as bad :-(

Michael
Michael@Insulin-Pumpers.org