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View Full Version : Controller thoughts with Linux?

qr7
11-30-2008, 06:57 PM
went a little crazy on BF and ordered quite a few 1.5 Seagates.
Currently I'm using 2 Super Micro SAT2-MV8's which are basically:
Marvell Technology Group Ltd. MV88SX6081 8-port SATA II PCI-X Controller

Had some major issues with these and linux driver support as of late so I'm looking to move to something comparable. I don't need a hardware raid card (using linux software raid), just something that is preferably PCI-E and can handle 8+ SATA drives with good linux support and hopefully decent throughput. I'd like to keep the cost down since I'm not going to be using it for hardware raid...

does anything out there fit my needs? really open to the forums thoughts on this.
jb_hafo
11-30-2008, 10:23 PM
basing the premise on "good linux compatibility" if "driver was ported to freebsd okay", ran
across the highpoint rocketraid 2000 series. Failed to notice you wanted pci-e. I'd check out
3ware or Areca also...
Dew
11-30-2008, 11:02 PM
I've had good experiences with the Highpoint RocketRaid 2320 series and Linux. Compiling your own driver is easy enough, even if they don't provide a driver specific to your distro.

As for throughput, in R5 I see reads around 450MB/sec peak. Normal reads for single large files is around 300MB/sec. So you wouldn't have to worry about the controller being a bottleneck at least.
qr7
12-01-2008, 12:20 AM
The RocketRaid 2320 has the same chipset (Marvell 88SX6081) as the one i'm currently using, just with their added on 'xor' chip. uses the same driver: sata_mv
This driver is the whole reason i'm looking to swap out the cards. the support just isn't there when you throw serious IO at it.

I'd really like to avoid dropping $500+ on a raid card that im not even going to use for hardware raid.
i'd be open to a 4-8 port PCI controller solution as well...
Dew
12-01-2008, 09:09 AM
The RocketRaid 2320 has the same chipset (Marvell 88SX6081) as the one i'm currently using, just with their added on 'xor' chip. uses the same driver: sata_mv
This driver is the whole reason i'm looking to swap out the cards. the support just isn't there when you throw serious IO at it.

I didn't know it was the same chip. I haven't had any issues. Mine uses rr232x.ko, may be the same driver, but honestly, I don't know.