From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Brad Campbell Subject: Re: Recommendations for supported 4-port SATA PCI card ? Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 04:28:30 +0400 Message-ID: <442DC92E.8080003@wasp.net.au> References: <442BFB2B.6090903@stams.strath.ac.uk> <442D22CD.3010602@nighthawkrad.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <442D22CD.3010602@nighthawkrad.net> Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Christopher Smith Cc: linux-raid@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-raid.ids Christopher Smith wrote: > Ian Thurlbeck wrote: >> >> Dear All >> >> I have 4x500GB Maxtor SATA drives and I want to attach >> these to a 4-port SATA PCI card and RAID5 them using "md" >> >> Could anybody recommend a card that will have out of >> box support on a Fedora system ? > > I have had a lot of success with Promise TX4 cards, with the caveat that > more than two controllers can't be in the same box (or couldn't as of a > few months ago - this may have been fixed). They're fairly cheap and I've been running 3 together in one box for about 18 months, and four in another for a year now... the on board BIOS will only pickup 8 drives, but they work just fine under Linux and recognise all connected drives. I have 11 drives in one box (on promise.. 2 on the on-board VIA and 1 on PATA) and 15 drives in another (all across 4 promise cards).. all on SATA150-TX4 cards.. Performance sucks.. but then when you put 15 drives on a single PCI 33Mhz bus what do you expect ? Great for streaming media though.. (and cheap, and very reliable). The only media errors I get are on the VIA controller. The promise controllers have not had a single media error since they were installed. Brad -- "Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." -- Douglas Adams