Any inexpensive hardware recommendations for PCI interface cards?

Any inexpensive hardware recommendations for PCI interface cards?

[Steve Fairbairn]

Hi All,

I currently have a couple of IT8212 PCI ATA RAID (1, 0 ot 1+0) cards
which Linux RAID doesn't seem to like too well.  Initially I tried
creating an array out of 4 disks on the 4 primaries over the 2 cards.
Although this seemed to work, the access performance was impossibly low
and I never actually got to the point of leaving it for a week to build
the array.

Since then, I have striped 2 of the drives (just primaries again and
known to be good drives) on a single card using the cards own striping
capability.  This striped drive, I've that added to my RAID 5 array as a
500GB single disk.

The grow into this disk worked fine as did the resize2fs.  As soon as I
tried to copy data onto the array, the system marked the  disk as
faulty.  Now currently I'm running a degraded array anyway as I'm
waiting for the replacement of the drive that failed with bad sectors
when I initially started the grow. So I had to use assemble --force to
get the md device back online.  I've not mounted it since. (I know it's
wise not to use the drive while it's degraded, but if I can get the data
off of a 320GB HD, then I can stripe that with another disk on the other
ITE card, and add in a spare to the array).

Can anyone see any issues with what I'm trying to do?
Are there any known issues with IT8212 cards (They worked as straight
disks on linux fine)?
Is anyone using an array with disks on PCI interface cards?
Is there an issue with mixing motherboard interfaces and PCI card based
ones?
Does anyone recommend any inexpensive (probably SATA-II) PCI interface
cards?

The motherboard has run out of sensible interfaces (I'm not using both
primary and secondary in an array on IDE), but I'd still like the
capacity to grow my array further.

Thanks again for the help.

Steve.

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Re: Any inexpensive hardware recommendations for PCI interface cards?

[Tim Southerwood]

Hi Steve,

Steve Fairbairn wrote:

<snip>

> Is anyone using an array with disks on PCI interface cards?

Almost, I have a Sil3132 PCI-E card (2 port SATA-300) mixed with 6 on
board ports (on Asus M2N-E mobo). No problems there, I quite pleased
with it.

> Is there an issue with mixing motherboard interfaces and PCI card based
> ones?

Not fundamentally. Speed issues may depend on whether the PCI bus to the
sockets is shared with the on board SATA chip, or if they are off
different busses.

> Does anyone recommend any inexpensive (probably SATA-II) PCI interface
> cards?

Unfortunately, the SiL3132 doesn't have an obvious PCI sibling.

You might consider a SiL3124 based card:

http://www.siliconimage.com/products/product.aspx?id=27

example card here:

http://www.satacard.com/

Price isn't so cheap though. If you can drop to SATA-150 (SATA I) then
you get the SiL3114 chips which are much more common (=cheap).

I can't vouch personally for those other chips, but I remember seeing
favourable reviews when I was searching for for SATA controllers.


Sorry I can't be of more help - just chucking some ideas back...

Cheers

Tim

Re: Any inexpensive hardware recommendations for PCI interface cards?

[Bill Davidsen]

Steve Fairbairn wrote:
> Can anyone see any issues with what I'm trying to do?
>   

No.

> Are there any known issues with IT8212 cards (They worked as straight
> disks on linux fine)?
>   

No idea, don't have that card.

> Is anyone using an array with disks on PCI interface cards?
>   

Works. I've mixed PATA, SATA, onboard, PCI, and firewire (lack of 
controllers is the mother of invention). As long as the device under the 
raid works, the raid should work.

> Is there an issue with mixing motherboard interfaces and PCI card based
> ones?
>   

Not that I've found.

> Does anyone recommend any inexpensive (probably SATA-II) PCI interface
> cards?
>   

Not I. Large drives have have cured me of FrankenRAID setups recently, 
other than to build little arrays out of USB devices for backup.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  "Woe unto the statesman who makes war without a reason that will still
  be valid when the war is over..." Otto von Bismark 

Re: Any inexpensive hardware recommendations for PCI interface cards?

[Justin Piszcz]

On Fri, 8 Feb 2008, Bill Davidsen wrote:

> Steve Fairbairn wrote:
>> Can anyone see any issues with what I'm trying to do?
>> 
>
> No.
>
>> Are there any known issues with IT8212 cards (They worked as straight
>> disks on linux fine)?
>> 
>
> No idea, don't have that card.
>
>> Is anyone using an array with disks on PCI interface cards?
>> 
>
> Works. I've mixed PATA, SATA, onboard, PCI, and firewire (lack of controllers 
> is the mother of invention). As long as the device under the raid works, the 
> raid should work.
>
>> Is there an issue with mixing motherboard interfaces and PCI card based
>> ones?
>> 
>
> Not that I've found.
>
>> Does anyone recommend any inexpensive (probably SATA-II) PCI interface
>> cards?
>> 
>
> Not I. Large drives have have cured me of FrankenRAID setups recently, other 
> than to build little arrays out of USB devices for backup.
>
> -- 
> Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
> "Woe unto the statesman who makes war without a reason that will still
> be valid when the war is over..." Otto von Bismark 
>
> -
> 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
>

The promise tx4 pci works great and supports sata/300+ncq/etc $60-$70.

Justin.

Re: Any inexpensive hardware recommendations for PCI interface cards?

[Iustin Pop]

On Fri, Feb 08, 2008 at 08:54:55AM -0500, Justin Piszcz wrote:
> The promise tx4 pci works great and supports sata/300+ncq/etc $60-$70.

Wait, I have used tx4 pci up until ~2.6.22 and it didn't support AFAIK
ncq. Are you sure that current driver supports NCQ? I might then revive
that card :)

thanks,
iustin

Re: Any inexpensive hardware recommendations for PCI interface cards?

[Justin Piszcz]

On Fri, 8 Feb 2008, Iustin Pop wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 08, 2008 at 08:54:55AM -0500, Justin Piszcz wrote:
>> The promise tx4 pci works great and supports sata/300+ncq/etc $60-$70.
>
> Wait, I have used tx4 pci up until ~2.6.22 and it didn't support AFAIK
> ncq. Are you sure that current driver supports NCQ? I might then revive
> that card :)
>
> thanks,
> iustin
>

Whoa nice catch, I meant the Promise 300 TX4 which now retails for $59.99 
w/free ship.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816102062

Justin.

Re: Any inexpensive hardware recommendations for PCI interface cards?

[Iustin Pop]

On Fri, Feb 08, 2008 at 02:24:15PM -0500, Justin Piszcz wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, 8 Feb 2008, Iustin Pop wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Feb 08, 2008 at 08:54:55AM -0500, Justin Piszcz wrote:
>>> The promise tx4 pci works great and supports sata/300+ncq/etc $60-$70.
>>
>> Wait, I have used tx4 pci up until ~2.6.22 and it didn't support AFAIK
>> ncq. Are you sure that current driver supports NCQ? I might then revive
>> that card :)
>>
>> thanks,
>> iustin
>>
>
> Whoa nice catch, I meant the Promise 300 TX4 which now retails for $59.99 
> w/free ship.
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816102062

:)

Actually, I exactly meant Promise 300 TX4 (the board is in my hand: chip
says PDC40718). The HW supports NCQ, but the linux sata_promise driver
didn't support NCQ when I tested it. Can someone confirm it does today
(2.6.24) NCQ?

iustin

Re: Any inexpensive hardware recommendations for PCI interface cards?

[Justin Piszcz]

On Fri, 8 Feb 2008, Iustin Pop wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 08, 2008 at 02:24:15PM -0500, Justin Piszcz wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 8 Feb 2008, Iustin Pop wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 08, 2008 at 08:54:55AM -0500, Justin Piszcz wrote:
>>>> The promise tx4 pci works great and supports sata/300+ncq/etc $60-$70.
>>>
>>> Wait, I have used tx4 pci up until ~2.6.22 and it didn't support AFAIK
>>> ncq. Are you sure that current driver supports NCQ? I might then revive
>>> that card :)
>>>
>>> thanks,
>>> iustin
>>>
>>
>> Whoa nice catch, I meant the Promise 300 TX4 which now retails for $59.99
>> w/free ship.
>>
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816102062
>
> :)
>
> Actually, I exactly meant Promise 300 TX4 (the board is in my hand: chip
> says PDC40718). The HW supports NCQ, but the linux sata_promise driver
> didn't support NCQ when I tested it. Can someone confirm it does today
> (2.6.24) NCQ?
>
> iustin
>

I used the board with a Seagate 400GiB/NCQ drive and I recall seeing Port 
Up 3.0Gbps/NCQ (31/32) within the scrolling text upon boot--
but it was awhile ago.

Justin.

Re: Any inexpensive hardware recommendations for PCI interface cards?

[Jeff Breidenbach]

>Does anyone recommend any inexpensive (probably SATA-II) PCI interface
>cards?

See this message and surrounding thread from November 2007 on
the linux-ide list.

http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-ide@vger.kernel.org/msg12726.html