[plug] RAID on a gigabyte 7N400p2 MoBo

[Jonathan Young]

I have to say that I have personally always preferred hardware when it 
comes to RAID, but have never used onboard.  I prefer a standalone 
controller with a separate BIOS onboard and that has never given me any 
trouble.  In my experience RAID has only been a headache when either a 
software solution or a cheaply produced motherboard integrated 
controller have been used.

Assuming your mainboard is decent (I can't comment on this particular 
occasion) then I would personally still go with the hardware option.  
You'll find out pretty quickly if it is truly Linux compatible, just do 
a test run before starting anything mission critical.  It should be a 
fairly black and white result.

An advantage of software RAID is that should a mainboard or controller 
fail you can move the drives to a new system and the mirror remains.  
However, I have often found software solutions to be more prone to 
failure that hardware, especially in the case of Windows!

I would still be leaning towards hardware RAID (IMHO) and you'll find 
out pretty quick if it's compatible or not.  Try it with a blank drive 
first...?

Chris Griffin wrote:

>So is the hardware RAID likley to give me grief or do you think it
>should be fine?
>
>On 12/16/05, Jonathan Young <jonathan at pcphix.com> wrote:
>  
>
>> Shouldn't be too bad, though I haven't tried it in practice.
>>
>> In theory, match the partitions on both disks, laid out how you would
>>prefer for Linux plus whatever space / partitions you are allocating for
>>Windows. Next, install Windows and set up it's software raid so that the two
>>windows partitions (one per disk) are mirrored and the other partitions are
>>left untouched and empty for your Linux installation. Install Linux and set
>>up it's software RAID... done!  So really.. the Windows side of things
>>shouldn't be an issue.
>>
>> However, hardware RAID is always going to be better because you would
>>really only have to worry about maintaining one drive and set of partitions
>>as you normally do and just expect the other drive to be matching it.
>>
>> In general, Windows software RAID has been a bit risky and hardware RAID
>>has always been less stress!
>>
>>
>> Chris Griffin wrote:
>>
>> That sounds like the one.
>>The trouble is I have the system partitioned and dual booting. So, I
>>wanted to have the hardware do the mirroring at that level and then
>>just partition and install the OS's.
>>Although partitioning both disks the same and using Linux software
>>RAID would be fine for Linux part, I would not think it would be so
>>easy on the XP side?
>>
>>On 12/15/05, Bernd Felsche <bernie at innovative.iinet.net.au>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>> Chris Griffin <griffinster at gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>
>>
>> Hopefully getting the subject right (RAID instead of RAIN, bad day) I
>>might get an answer.
>>
>>
>> I have a gigabyte 7N400 Pro 2 motherboard and the manual says the
>>hardware RAID should work with Linux. They cite a RedHat 7.3 install.
>>Has anyone actually done this?
>>Can I expect it to work out of the box these days with say Fedora 4?
>>
>> ITE8212 chipset?
>>
>>I believe that that is supported directly in the more-recent kernels.
>>2.6.13 and later.
>>
>>I humbly suggest that you don't use the on-board RAID; just the
>>interfaces and employ a software raid (md) instead. That means that
>>when the motherboard dies, you can take the drives and plug them
>>into another system and be able to read them as before.
>>--
>>/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
>>\ / ASCII ribbon campaign | Socialist \So"cial*ist\, n.
>> X against HTML mail | One who knows what's best for
>>/ \ and postings | everyone else.
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
>>http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
>>Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
>>http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
>>Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>--
>> Jonathan Young
>> Director of PC-PHIX
>> jonathan at pcphix.com
>>
>> Phone: 0410 455 674
>> Web: http://www.pcphix.com/
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
>>http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
>>Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
>>
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>_______________________________________________
>PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
>http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
>Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
>
>  
>


-- 
Jonathan Young
Director of PC-PHIX
jonathan at pcphix.com

Phone: 0410 455 674
Web: http://www.pcphix.com/

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