[TriLUG] raid cards

[Wing D Lizard]

Aaron S. Joyner wrote:
> Wing D Lizard wrote:
> 
>> I want to add a raid-1 to a server ( supermicro x5dal).  Since the
>> motherboard doesn't support hw raid, I'm looking at pci sata
>> cards.
>>
>> Intrex has a couple:
>>
>>   CON-SATAR - sil3112a chipset
>>   CON-TX2300 - promice fastrack tx2300 ( SATA II??)
>>
>> has anybody tried either of these?  Any problems?
> 
> Okay, so I'm like 10 days late on checking my TriLUG mail, and it
> shows.  :)  Still, I couldn't help but respond to this posting.  There
> was lost of discussion about the Promise offerings, as well as the


Final update:

I went with the inexpensive sil3112 sata pci card.  I configured
it as sw raid1 using centos4.2.  I went with two maxtor
300Gig sata drives.  The drives and controller were bought at
intex in Raleigh ( wake forest rd).

The computer also had an ide drive 'segate baracuda'.  Using
'hdparm -Tt' to benchmark the drives ( ok, not the best), the
sata drives were 50% faster than the ide drives with the
motherboard controller ( about 40MB/s and 60MB/s were
reported).  The motherboard is a supermicro x5dal.

The particular promise drive that intrex carried had some bad
press on the CentOS.  For THose who are interested:
   http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=1744&forum=29

Both controllers had widely varying reports.  I have some personal
experience on my home box with a sil3112 (mobo) controller, so I went
with it.  Once I decided to go with sw raid instead of hardware
raid, the choice was a bit easier.

The server was shipped back to my old workplace, and I start my new
job in rtp tomorrow.

The drives and controller worked great in my testing.  If I heard
anything different, I'll write an update.

b