Linux Raid cards?

[Healy]

My current 250gb raid mirror for all my MP3s is running on my windows
box. I'd like to move it over to linux if I can and build a dedicated
server for my squeezebox and home audio.

Anyone have a recomendation for an IDE raid card that will work good
with linux 2.4 kernel? It must do mirroring. My current card will only
do striping but no mirroring in the 2.4 kernel (debian stable). Hence
the reason it's in a windows box. I'd like to keep it under a hundred
bucks if I can.

Thanks,

-Healy

[Jeff Blasius]

As far as I understand, ide raid cards do not play well with linux.
Especially if they're
on the motherboard. I know several people who have both raid 1 and 0
setup in linux
through software and love it. I've heard dozens of reports, and I'd
venture to say that software
raid in linux is more stable than hardware raid in windows. Here is a
decent tutorial for debian
http://members.ferrara.linux.it/cali...ian_raid1.html
I would also search the gentoo forums for helpful tips even if you're
not running gentoo.
Good Luck,
jeff


Healy wrote:

>My current 250gb raid mirror for all my MP3s is running on my windows
>box. I'd like to move it over to linux if I can and build a dedicated
>server for my squeezebox and home audio.
>
>Anyone have a recomendation for an IDE raid card that will work good
>with linux 2.4 kernel? It must do mirroring. My current card will only
>do striping but no mirroring in the 2.4 kernel (debian stable). Hence
>the reason it's in a windows box. I'd like to keep it under a hundred
>bucks if I can.
>
>Thanks,
>
>-Healy
>
>
>
>

[Dan Sully]

* Healy <slim (AT) nwgeeks (DOT) com> shaped the electrons to say...

>My current 250gb raid mirror for all my MP3s is running on my windows
>box. I'd like to move it over to linux if I can and build a dedicated
>server for my squeezebox and home audio.
>
>Anyone have a recomendation for an IDE raid card that will work good
>with linux 2.4 kernel? It must do mirroring. My current card will only
>do striping but no mirroring in the 2.4 kernel (debian stable). Hence
>the reason it's in a windows box. I'd like to keep it under a hundred
>bucks if I can.

The 3Ware and HighPoint are the best supported cards under Linux. In that order.

-D
--
You have the puzzle pieces? Good, then turn off the damn walls.

[Mark Komarinski]

On Thu, Apr 29, 2004 at 06:55:16PM -0700, Healy wrote:
> My current 250gb raid mirror for all my MP3s is running on my windows
> box. I'd like to move it over to linux if I can and build a dedicated
> server for my squeezebox and home audio.
>
> Anyone have a recomendation for an IDE raid card that will work good
> with linux 2.4 kernel? It must do mirroring. My current card will only
> do striping but no mirroring in the 2.4 kernel (debian stable). Hence
> the reason it's in a windows box. I'd like to keep it under a hundred
> bucks if I can.

I forget what 2.4 kernel is being shipped by debian stable, but you
may want to get the latest 2.4 release. What card do you have now
that only does striping? That's real strange.

The 3Ware cards have pretty good support under Linux for mirror and striping.
They're a bit over $100, but CDW has their low end card for $129.

-Mark

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[Stephen Ryan]

On Thu, 2004-04-29 at 21:55, Healy wrote:
> My current 250gb raid mirror for all my MP3s is running on my windows
> box. I'd like to move it over to linux if I can and build a dedicated
> server for my squeezebox and home audio.
>
> Anyone have a recomendation for an IDE raid card that will work good
> with linux 2.4 kernel? It must do mirroring. My current card will only
> do striping but no mirroring in the 2.4 kernel (debian stable). Hence
> the reason it's in a windows box. I'd like to keep it under a hundred
> bucks if I can.

Is there some reason why it has to be hardware? The 2.4 kernel has a
decent software raid driver (at least, I really hope it's decent,
because I've been running it on all the servers at work for a couple of
years now :-)
--
Stephen Ryan
Digital Rights Management is bad for all of us:
http://www.bricklin.com/robfuture.htm

[Healy]

On Fri, 2004-04-30 at 06:19, Mark Komarinski wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 29, 2004 at 06:55:16PM -0700, Healy wrote:
> > My current 250gb raid mirror for all my MP3s is running on my windows
> > box. I'd like to move it over to linux if I can and build a dedicated
> > server for my squeezebox and home audio.
> >
> > Anyone have a recomendation for an IDE raid card that will work good
> > with linux 2.4 kernel? It must do mirroring. My current card will only
> > do striping but no mirroring in the 2.4 kernel (debian stable). Hence
> > the reason it's in a windows box. I'd like to keep it under a hundred
> > bucks if I can.
>
> I forget what 2.4 kernel is being shipped by debian stable, but you
> may want to get the latest 2.4 release. What card do you have now
> that only does striping? That's real strange.
>

The Rocket-Raid 100:
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/rr100.htm

I must admit, I haven't looked for a while to see if it's now
supported. When I built the box striping was the only thing available
in the stock debian woody kernel.

> The 3Ware cards have pretty good support under Linux for mirror and striping.
> They're a bit over $100, but CDW has their low end card for $129.
>
> -Mark
>
>

[David Yaffe]

If you can break the $100 barrier the Adaptec ATA RAID cards work extremely well. They appear as SCSI Raid controllers to Linux. I'm using the 2400A card under Linux with no problem (0/1) with 4 x 100 GB drives.
David


----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Sully" <daniel (AT) electricrain (DOT) com>
To: "Slim Devices Discussion" <discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 9:48 PM
Subject: [slim] Linux Raid cards?


> * Healy <slim (AT) nwgeeks (DOT) com> shaped the electrons to say...
>
> >My current 250gb raid mirror for all my MP3s is running on my windows
> >box. I'd like to move it over to linux if I can and build a dedicated
> >server for my squeezebox and home audio.
> >
> >Anyone have a recomendation for an IDE raid card that will work good
> >with linux 2.4 kernel? It must do mirroring. My current card will only
> >do striping but no mirroring in the 2.4 kernel (debian stable). Hence
> >the reason it's in a windows box. I'd like to keep it under a hundred
> >bucks if I can.
>
> The 3Ware and HighPoint are the best supported cards under Linux. In that order.
>
> -D
> --
> You have the puzzle pieces? Good, then turn off the damn walls.
>

[bob villielm]

Mark Komarinski wrote:
> I forget what 2.4 kernel is being shipped by debian stable, but you
> may want to get the latest 2.4 release. What card do you have now
> that only does striping? That's real strange.
>
> The 3Ware cards have pretty good support under Linux for mirror and striping.
> They're a bit over $100, but CDW has their low end card for $129.

I'll third the 3ware recommendation.

You can pick up the 7006-2 card for about $110.
Just built a mirrored Mandrake 9.2 box with one
last month, performance and stability are great.
Installation was an absolute breeze.

-bob

[Gregory P. Smith]

> The 3Ware and HighPoint are the best supported cards under Linux. In that
> order.

The 3Ware cards are great. Its well worth noting however that they are
best used as simply a multi-channel ide or sata controller if you want to
do raid5 (i have no data on their hardware raid1 or raid0 performance;
presumably they do alright there). Their onboard raid5 speed is very
slow (30-40mbyte/sec max); using linux software raid on disks attached
to a 3ware uses neglegible cpu and gets you much higher IO speed.

-g

[Daryle A. Tilroe]

bob villielm wrote:
> Mark Komarinski wrote:
>>
>> The 3Ware cards have pretty good support under Linux for mirror and
>> striping.
>
> I'll third the 3ware recommendation.
>

I can fourth it! :-) While I use XP for my home 'server' I run
a ~100 user email/imap/webmail server using linux and a 3ware card
with 1+0 mirroring then striping of 4 ide drives. Was inexpensive
and has worked great for almost 3 years now. Had a drive fail and
it was completely painless to replace and remirror.

--
Daryle A. Tilroe