DPT SmartRAID IV question...

DPT SmartRAID IV question...

[Mark Watts]

I've managed to acquire a DPT SmartRAID IV 3334W card with the SX4030/1UW 
daughterboard and 32MB of cache ram...

Is this card actually any good, or is it only good as a door wedge?

Mark.

Re: DPT SmartRAID IV question...

[Michael]

> I've managed to acquire a DPT SmartRAID IV 3334W card with the SX4030/1UW 
> daughterboard and 32MB of cache ram...
> 

I have two different models of the DPT SmartRAID board -- both are buggy 
and cause data loss (software raid corruption) on high disk loads such as 
copying large files. I'm still using them for $$ reasons, and on 
relatively low loads they seem to be OK. There are some notes floating 
around the net that some of these boards have bugs in the microcode. I've 
confirmed that for one type of board I have. Sorry, don't know the model 
numbers offhand, they are buttoned up in the machines. I have a spare 
daughterboard that is a 4050.

If I had the option, I would make boat anchors of the cards and the scsii 
disks that go with them. They've been nothing but trouble. We have a 
dozen Linux raid 1 and 5 hosts and these are the only ones that ever 
fault. We run very low duty cycle on the disk IO so it's not a problem 
for us at the moment.

Michael

RE: DPT SmartRAID IV question...

[Salyzyn, Mark]

I am biased.

I have bashed these cards as hard as I can; they have remained
bulletproof for me. Their only problem is a maximum throughput of
10MB/sec to the host, and they support more operating systems than
almost anything else on the planet (IDE interface notwithstanding).

What F/W version do you have on the cards?

Sincerely -- Mark Salyzyn

-----Original Message-----
From: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org
[mailto:linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of Michael
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 7:03 PM
To: Mark Watts
Cc: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: DPT SmartRAID IV question...

> I've managed to acquire a DPT SmartRAID IV 3334W card with the
SX4030/1UW 
> daughterboard and 32MB of cache ram...
> 

I have two different models of the DPT SmartRAID board -- both are buggy

and cause data loss (software raid corruption) on high disk loads such
as 
copying large files. I'm still using them for $$ reasons, and on 
relatively low loads they seem to be OK. There are some notes floating 
around the net that some of these boards have bugs in the microcode.
I've 
confirmed that for one type of board I have. Sorry, don't know the model

numbers offhand, they are buttoned up in the machines. I have a spare 
daughterboard that is a 4050.

If I had the option, I would make boat anchors of the cards and the
scsii 
disks that go with them. They've been nothing but trouble. We have a 
dozen Linux raid 1 and 5 hosts and these are the only ones that ever 
fault. We run very low duty cycle on the disk IO so it's not a problem 
for us at the moment.

Michael

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Re: DPT SmartRAID IV question...

[Mark Watts]

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Hash: SHA1


> I am biased.
>
> I have bashed these cards as hard as I can; they have remained
> bulletproof for me. Their only problem is a maximum throughput of
> 10MB/sec to the host, and they support more operating systems than
> almost anything else on the planet (IDE interface notwithstanding).
>
> What F/W version do you have on the cards?

Its not plugged into anything yet, so I'm not sure.

I take it I won't be seeing more than 10MB/sec even if its plugged into an
AthlonXP and hooked up with U160 drives (overkill yes, but I cant find any
lower spec drives :)

I was under the impression from the literature I can find on the Adaptec
website, that they were 40MB/sec UW cards - is that just marketing or am I
missing something?

Mark.

- -- 
Mark Watts
Senior Systems Engineer
QinetiQ Trusted Information Management
Trusted Solutions and Services group
GPG Public Key ID: 455420ED

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