PCI ATA EIDE cards and kernel drivers

PCI ATA EIDE cards and kernel drivers

[Keith Roberts]

Hi all.

I'm running Fedora 8, and having suffered a recent hard disk 
failure, I want to set up a RAID1 array of two EIDE ATA 133 
physical drives for my server. These will use the maximum 
number of partitions allowed under Linux. I also want to use 
a seperate non-raid ATA drive for making backups of 
important data from the RAID arrays. So in total I would 
have my important data on three seperate physical drives. 
I'm also making backups of my data to CD-R and DVD+R as 
well.

I have the standard EIDE connectors on my Motherboard, which 
will be used for the backup ATA drive, and the DVD RW 
optical drive. All drives will use separate cables and work 
as master drives. This applies to the RAID1 array drives as 
well.

**My Questions are:**

Do the PCI EIDE cards need to be supported with kernel 
drivers, or can I put any PCI EIDE card in the machine and 
it will 'just work'?

Obviously I don't want to buy the wrong PCI EIDE/ATA 
controller card.

Can anyone recommend any PCI EIDE ATA controller cards that 
are known to work under the latest versions of Linux please, 
without me having to keep re-compiling the kernel to support 
the PCI EIDE card?

I'm running kernel-2.6.24.4-64.fc8

Kind Regards

Keith Roberts

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Re: PCI ATA EIDE cards and kernel drivers

[John Stoffel]

Keith> I'm running Fedora 8, and having suffered a recent hard disk
Keith> failure, I want to set up a RAID1 array of two EIDE ATA 133
Keith> physical drives for my server. These will use the maximum
Keith> number of partitions allowed under Linux. 

Umm.. why?  Just make a single partition on each disk which spans the
entire disk, then use mdadm to mirror those two partitions.  Then use
LVM to create the Physical Volume (PV) on the RAID1 mirror, then
create your Logical Volumes (LVs) ontop of the PV.  You can create as
many LVs as you like.

Keith> I also want to use a seperate non-raid ATA drive for making
Keith> backups of important data from the RAID arrays. So in total I
Keith> would have my important data on three seperate physical drives.

Good plan.  Now automate it so you don't forget.  :]

Keith> I'm also making backups of my data to CD-R and DVD+R as well.

I find the cost of CD-R media and DVD+R, as well as the issues with
longevity, to be my biggest concerns.  For those types of media,
having a very robust and redundant easy to recover format would be
key.  Haven't seen it done yet, though it's been talked about.  An
Archive filesystem, not a general access one.  

Keith> I have the standard EIDE connectors on my Motherboard, which
Keith> will be used for the backup ATA drive, and the DVD RW optical
Keith> drive. All drives will use separate cables and work as master
Keith> drives. This applies to the RAID1 array drives as well.

Yup, this should work just fine.

Keith> **My Questions are:**

Keith> Do the PCI EIDE cards need to be supported with kernel drivers,
Keith> or can I put any PCI EIDE card in the machine and it will 'just
Keith> work'?

Keith> Obviously I don't want to buy the wrong PCI EIDE/ATA controller
Keith> card.

It all depends on which modules FC8 has already compiled, but I
suspect they have most of the standard ones already there.

I've personally got a HighPoint HPT302 rocket RAID IDE controller in
my system and it's worked well for quite a few years now.  But in this
day and age, why aren't you going SATA or have you already got the
drives you're going to be using? 

Keith> Can anyone recommend any PCI EIDE ATA controller cards that are
Keith> known to work under the latest versions of Linux please,
Keith> without me having to keep re-compiling the kernel to support
Keith> the PCI EIDE card?

Keith> I'm running kernel-2.6.24.4-64.fc8

REally, it's all up to the Fedora Core people which modules they
provide by default, so take a look in /lib/modules/... for what's
there.

I've also got a SIL3112 two/four port PCI Sata card and I've been
happy with that one as well.

Cheers,
John

Re: PCI ATA EIDE cards and kernel drivers

[Bill Davidsen]

John Stoffel wrote:
> I find the cost of CD-R media and DVD+R, as well as the issues with
> longevity, to be my biggest concerns.  For those types of media,
> having a very robust and redundant easy to recover format would be
> key.  Haven't seen it done yet, though it's been talked about.  An
> Archive filesystem, not a general access one.  
>   

Let me make one comment on that. To back up files of reasonable (<1GB) 
files, you can build a list of files which will fit on a single DVD (a 
series of lists actually), and backup the files to a DVD, either in ISO 
format or using the loopback mount to make an ext2 filesystem you can 
write to a DVD, or a tar, cpio, you get the idea. The tool to make the 
lists of files which will fit is "breaker" and is on 
www.tmr.com/~public/source for your enjoyment.

The other tool is dvdisaster, which builds software ECC for images you 
are going to burn. You can make DVDs with 3.3GB data + ECC on each DVD, 
or 4.4GB data per DVD and keep the ECC files separately, whatever 
pleases you.  The recovery mode does work, I used scissors to scratch a 
DVD with my initials, then recovered the data.

Both programs have enough documentation for most users.

-- 
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