[plug] Adaptec ATA/100 RAID 1200A

[Craig Ringer]

On Fri, 2004-11-05 at 17:16, Matt Kemner wrote:

> If you want real hardware RAID, not software RAID, be prepared to spend
> lots for it.

Yep. Lots may range from "several hundred" to "a couple of grand"
depending on what you need. Anything below a few hundred is extremely
likely to be software RAID (usually in the drivers) or at best software
raid with basic hardware acceleration. I've written about this stuff
before, too, if you feel the need to read my blatherings in the
archives.

Doing some research before buying will help you avoid falling into this
trap.

Last time I checked (admittedly a while ago) all the Promise, VIA and
Highpoint PATA/SATA RAID cards are driver RAID, as was the Silicon Image
SATA RAID chipset and the Intel *ATA RAID chipsets. For real hardware
ATA RAID I don't know if you have any other options but 3ware, actually.

> My choice would be to get a 3ware (pretty sure they still do PATA) which
> are nice and fast, and well supported under Linux by the company
> themselves.

Yep, they still do PATA and they make really nice cards. Unfortunately,
they're generally even more expensive than SCSI RAID controllers -
though of course your price-per-megabyte will still be a LOT lower in
most cases.

I had to get mine ordered in from the USA, too.

> The other option is Linux software RAID, which is fast enough for most
> purposes, and has the handy added bonus that you're not relying on an
> expensive piece of hardware, which if it breaks will require you to locate
> another identical expensive piece of hardware to be able to recover your
> data - and you'll also need a copy of all the settings (block size etc) to
> put back into the new card.

It's not always that bad - the 3ware cards just detect newly inserted
arrays from on-disk format information. You can even (with the SATA
variant I have) hot-unplug an array from one host and plug it into
another host - it should just find it when you tell it to re-scan the
bus, and that's it.

--
Craig Ringer