[NTLUG:Discuss] Built a big box

[Dan Carlson]

The raid support is the software raid provided by the linux kernel.

I use Promise ATA PCI controllers in addtion to the system board integrated
controllers.

Maxtor's retail ATA controllers are relabelled Promise controllers, they
just cost less.

I've also used HighPoint controllers, but I've had some problems with them
that I've never had with Promise.

Promise is at www.promise.com.  You can find both Promise and the
relabelled Maxtor equivalents in retail stores and on eBay.

When I buy system boards the number of ide controllers is one of the
features I consider.  There are quite a few boards with two ide controllers
and I've seen some with three.  You can run multiple ATA PCI controllers in
the same system, until you run out of PCI slots.

Each ide controller has two channels, i.e. it supports two drives.  With
software raid you should only put one drive on a controller, i.e. every
drive should be a master.  You can run a cdrom, as long as you have an
available channel to plug it into.  If you run the cdrom on the same
controller as a hard disk then you are increasing the possibility of
failure and decreasing throughput.  With two devices on the same ide
controller, if one device fails it can cause the other device to also stop
functioning, even though there is nothing wrong with it.   For example, if
you have a hard drive master and a cdrom slave, if the cdrom fails and
starts misbehaving electrically it can prevent further communication with
the hard disk.  So when doing raid it is best to put only one drive (hard
disk or cdrom) on a controller.

Dan Carlson

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kipton Moravec" <kip at kdream.com>
To: "Dan Carlson" <dcarlson at dcarlson.net>; "NTLUG Discussion List"
<discuss at ntlug.org>
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 2:57 PM
Subject: Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] Built a big box


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dan Carlson" <dcarlson at dcarlson.net>
> > With software raid5 over six ide disks in my system with a 2.2 GHz P4 I
> get
> > 50 to 70 MB/sec.  It really does vary over that range from one run to
> > another, depending on disk activity from other processes.
>
> I was wondering how you do RAID with IDE disks, since the PC supports
only 4
> IDE devices.
>
> Do you have another controller that supports IDE Raid?  What is the brand
> name?  Does it leave space for CDROM drive?
> Do you have a URL?
>
> Kip
>
>
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