Re: RAID5 over Serial-ATA success stories?

[mru@kth.se (Måns Rullgård)]

Daniel Brahneborg <basic@wtnord.net> writes:

> Thanks for the feedback, it's very valuable to me.
>
> On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 10:56:32PM +0100, Måns Rullgård wrote:
>> Daniel Brahneborg <daniel.com@wtnord.net> writes:
>> 
>> > I'd like to hear some success stories for RAID5 on Serial-ATA disks.
>> > Which Serial-ATA card are you using?  Do you get decent performance?
>> > Is it stable with DMA enabled?  Do you use the 2.4 or 2.6 kernel?
>> >
>> > I know this much:
>> >
>> > It doesn't work with Silicon Image.
>> 
>> What doesn't work?  There are drivers, at least in 2.6.  Raid should
>> care about what sort of disks you use.
>
> When using it for normal disks e2fsck reports bad blocks all
> over the disk. When used for RAID, I get corrupted data.  Not
> much, maybe every second time for a file of 500MB.
> This is with the IDE driver.  With the SCSI driver, my computer
> completely freezes when I activate my second network card (as I
> reported earlier, unfortunately still without a solution).
> RAID might work with that driver, but unless the network card
> problem is solved, that doesn't help me.

That sounds rather odd.  Have you reported this to the appropriate
places?

>> > It doesn't work with VIA (yet, anyway).
>> > It might work with HighPoint.
>> 
>> I've run RAID5 on a Highpoint RocketRAID 1540.  I used ATA disks with
>> SATA converters, though.  Works with both 2.4 and 2.6.
>
> Sounds good to hear.  It's the second cheapest card for me.

Beware that several people have reported some rather strange problems
with the Highpoint cards.  You should get a deal to take it back if it
doesn't work.

>> > It probably works with Promise.
>> > I don't know if there's a driver for Adaptec.
>> 
>> Which Adaptec card?  The 12xx cards are fakeraid, but are supported as
>> normal cards.  The 24xx cards are true hardware RAID cards.  Linux
>> drivers exist for these, too.
>
> It's the 12xx cards that I'm looking at. I don't want hardware
> RAID, since hardware RAID5 costs an infinite amount of money.

Not really.  The Adaptec 24xx cards cost about the same as the disks
you attach to them.  I ordered one from a while ago, but the shop went
bankrupt before I got it, or at least their web site disappeared and
they stopped answering mail or phone calls.

>> > In case I have to replace my Silicon Image card, what should I replace
>> > it with?  I'm currently leaning towards Promise TX4 (or TX2 if the VIA
>> > driver is completed).
>> 
>> I stay as far away as I can from Promise and VIA.  Anything is usually
>> better than those two.
>
> Why the warning about Promise?

I've had some bad experience with them, that's all.  They appear to be
incompatible with Alpha machines, but probably work better in PCs.

> The reason I want the VIA driver to work is that I've got two VIA
> connectors on the motherboard, so I only need a 2 port SATA card.

From what I've heard, VIA have improved a bit of late, but they used
to have a rather bad reputation.  I don't know anything about the
drivers, though.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@kth.se