[WBEL-users] ATA Raid Controllers (was: Promise Fasttrack100 non-RAID support)

[Dave J. Hala Jr.]

I'm using a Promise SATA raid controller on a testing machine here.  My
original intent was to use this technology to replace some SCSI raid
level 1 on some low to mid-range servers.

I'm glad that I took the time to test it. Doing a fresh install using RH
9.0 was a pain. When I told the RH installer to load the Promise driver,
it didn't quite get it right. Before rebooting I had to do a crtl+alt+f2
(I think that was it) and modify some config files.

If you run up2date and do a kernel update, the new kernel won't find the
promise drivers, and you'll have to boot off a floppy and tweak the
config..again, another pain...

Most of these issues are not that big a deal - and I don't want to sound
like a whiner, but, when you have multiple machines, and can't afford
alot of downtime, its better to have a configuration that is supported
natively.

I would have used the 3ware card, but the additional cost would negate
the cost savings. What I ended up doing was purchasing some older Mylex
Ultra 160 SCSI raid controllers and some smaller 15k SCSI drives.  The
price ended being the same as the PROMISE/SATA solution -and its
supported natively.

As far as doing software Raid 1 with ATA drives in RH, I've found that
it works well -until you have a heavily load on the disk. If you have
only a light load, its a good compromise.




:) Dave




On Mon, 2004-01-12 at 15:52, William Hooper wrote:
> Milan Kerslager said:
> >
> > Promise is very cheap. 3Ware is a little bit expensive. But yes - if you
> > use WhiteBox as true Enterprise solution... :-)
> 
> At least in some cases Promise has only provided drivers (they aren't in
> the kernel) for the one kernel that ships with a Red Hat version.  If you
> try to upgrade to an errata kernel you are out of luck.  I would do a lot
> of research before thinking about buying a Promise Raid solution.
> 
> Personally, I'm just saying the heck with it and using the kernel's
> software raid (mirroring in my case).
-- 

"...Unix, MS-DOS and Windows NT (also known as the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)"

OSIS
Dave J. Hala Jr.
641.485.1606