Since Serial RAID stuff is still new I don't think you would save much
going the Serial ATA route. Although the drives may be cheaper,
you might feel like a guinea pig if you find a bug. I would take the
conservative route of using well established products.
If you want stability, you should stay away from the 'Experimental' stuff.
Support for IDE RAID controllers is still 'Experimental' in the 2.4.20
kernel. I was not even able to find support for Serial ATA when I popped
up 'make menuconfig' on my desk machine.
According to the 2.4.20 kernel [make menuconfig],
the following Vendors and Server RAID cards are fully supported in the 2.4.20:
Adaptec: "all of Adaptec's I2O based RAID controllers
as well as the DPT SmartRaid V cards"
Module: dpt_i2o.o
(Note, that 'Adaptec AACRAID support' is still experimental and does not
work with the above module.)
IBM ServeRAID hardware RAID controllers
Module: ips.o
MEGA RAID (AMI MegaRAID 418, 428, 438, 466, 762, 490, 467)
Module: megaraid.o
Personally, I don't like MEGA RAID cards because I had one fail.
I realized the board failed after a drive died. I suppose any vendors
product could fail, but I now only trust IBM and Adaptec with SCSI RAID
cards.
For vendors, both IBM and Adaptec make high quality RAID controllers.
They typically run around $270 - $400 for a single channel RAID
controller.
>Any suggestions on motherboard, SCSI raid controller and drives? I like
>AMD and generally use their processors. One of my tech's is wanting me to
>go with Serial ATA RAID controller, but I have distrusted any non-SCSI for
>a long time. Is it time to change my opinion on that?
For a motherboard use something that the vendors use for servers.
Or pic a well proven motherboard, then make sure that there is support
for all the components in the kernel.
Motherboards with chipsets that are experimental or known to act strange
should be avoided:
Experimental Chipsets:
Tekram TR290
OPTi 82C621 EIDE
Goofy Acting Chipsets:
CMD480
"design flaws that can cause severe data corruption" --kernel
VIA82CXXX -- are ok, but should not be used for server.
see drivers/ide/via82cxxx.c
Ted Knab
Annapolis Linux
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