Best RAID 5 Card For Socket 939 Opty?

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Silvermirage

Limp Gawd
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Dec 14, 2005
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I'm looking to build a 2 TB RAID 5 server with a socket 939 Opty. The componants I need help deciding on are the Mobo and the RAID Card. If I can't get a socket 939 mobo with PCI-X or a good RAID 5 card compatible with PCI Express, I will have to go with some PCI-X mobo and revise the CPU configuration. I would really like tinker with one of the new socket 939 opterons, but if it isn't going to contribute to the system, I can't justify buying one. Please find me a PCI-X socket 939 Mobo or a good RAID 5 Card with PCI Express...

(will I be able to run the PCI-e card in 4x so that I can have 16x for my graphics card?)
 
You could get the Foxconn mobo with 2 real x16 slots - the NFPIK8AA-8EKRS. That doesn't get you a s939 opteron, but it's an opteron nonetheless.

 
nahhh...I wanna have fun with this one. I wanna OC it to hell - and then get a new one which I don't OC for fear of frying another :p
 
HighPoint makes a few controllers that are PCI-X and backwards compatible to PCI that can handle RAID5. Check out the 1810A, 1820 and 1820A.

Edit: corrected error regarding pci-x/e
 
IcedEmotion said:
HighPoint makes a few controllers that are PCI-e and backwards compatible to PCI that can handle RAID5. Check out the 1810A, 1820 and 1820A.
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None of the cards you mentioned are PCIe. They are PCI-X at best. It is virtually impossible to make a PCIe card that is 'backwards compatible' with PCI, unless it is a two sided card with one side having a PCIe connector and the other being plain PCI.
 
How much performance would I lose by using a Areca PCI-X card backwards as a 32 bit PCI card? Would I only lose performance if I was transfering information at its maximum capacity? What are the maximum capacities of 64 bit 133MHZ PCI-X and 32 bit PCI?
 
Silvermirage said:
Please find me a PCI-X socket 939 Mobo or a good RAID 5 Card with PCI Express...

QUOTE]


This is as close as you are going to get with socket 939 and pci-X.

http://www.supermicro.com/Aplus/motherboard/Opteron/HT1000/H8SSL-i.cfm

It has pci-X 133 for the raid card but only a 8mb rageXL onboard for video. It uses the new serverworks chipset. I am not sure where to find it as supermicro only likes to sell the Aplus line of stuff as OEM only. It is not impossible though I have a H8DCE that I am personally using.
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Highpoint does have a pci-E card, though - the 2320, which happens to be out of stock. A good choice imo.

 
I think I'll have to go with a PCIe card because I can't get a mobo with good OCing potential that has PCI-X.
 
Silvermirage said:
nahhh...I wanna have fun with this one. I wanna OC it to hell - and then get a new one which I don't OC for fear of frying another :p
Click to expand...

Why would you want to OC a system with RAID 5 in it? One usually buys a RAID 5 system for redundancy and reliabilty. Overclockers tend to have different motivations with their system.

If you need a system with a ton of storage, then build a server and don't overclock it. If you want a machine to OC and have good framerates or whatever, build a seperate system for that. Nothing wrong and everything right with having different systems for different purposes.

Just my thoughs on the matter. :)
 
no - the purpose of the system is to have a solid backup system - but I also want to tinker with one of the new opterons so I wanted to see if I could get one in this system. I will tinker with it for a while and then run it at normal clock speed for the rest of its life :)
 
lizardking009 said:
Why would you want to OC a system with RAID 5 in it? One usually buys a RAID 5 system for redundancy and reliabilty. Overclockers tend to have different motivations with their system.

If you need a system with a ton of storage, then build a server and don't overclock it. If you want a machine to OC and have good framerates or whatever, build a seperate system for that. Nothing wrong and everything right with having different systems for different purposes.

Just my thoughs on the matter. :)
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+1
Thats why I've got my DC 165 OC'd and my X2 4400+ oc'd but the Opty 148 that I just bought for my Raid 5 file server I'm not going to OC even the slightest. I've been doing some reading and seems that even with the PCI buss locked people have some problems with OCing raid 5 arrays and instability.
 
Silvermirage said:
How much performance would I lose by using a Areca PCI-X card backwards as a 32 bit PCI card? Would I only lose performance if I was transfering information at its maximum capacity? What are the maximum capacities of 64 bit 133MHZ PCI-X and 32 bit PCI?
Click to expand...

64bit@133 is 2x as wide and 4x the clock compared to 32bit@33, so it has a max transfer speed 8 times what you'd get in a 32bit/33MHz PCI (that's 1064 MBytes/sec vs. 133 MBytes/sec).
The real speed loss would be likely be less than eight fold, as I doubt the PCI-X interface would be maxxed out.

Areca has a nice line of PCIe x8 Sata Raid cards.
I bought one of their PCI-X Sata Raid cards recently. I looked for socket 939 mobos with PCI-X slots but couldn't find one. Boards with PCI-X are server or workstation class which are either socket 940 Opterons or Intel Xeons (yuck).
 
unhappy_mage said:
Highpoint does have a pci-E card, though - the 2320, which happens to be out of stock. A good choice imo.

Click to expand...
frankly, that seems like a good choice, if only to get 8 SATA ports on a PCIe bus, which should improve write speeds if you do software raid5.

Anyway, that card is certainly on my list :)

lizardking009 said:
Why would you want to OC a system with RAID 5 in it? One usually buys a RAID 5 system for redundancy and reliabilty. Overclockers tend to have different motivations with their system.

If you need a system with a ton of storage, then build a server and don't overclock it. If you want a machine to OC and have good framerates or whatever, build a seperate system for that. Nothing wrong and everything right with having different systems for different purposes.

Just my thoughs on the matter. :)
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I agree completely, but did not want to out myself for running a celery in my SC420 as my Domain Controller/ File server.
 
promise also has a pcie sata raid card. It has a hardware processor and onboard ram.

They discuss a little over @SR

I'm thinking about putting one in my x16 slot and using a cheap pci vid card(no sli mobo here yet). Anyone think tthat'll work?
 
DougLite said:
Areca FTW. Their cards are expensive though.
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Who would you recommend that's on the Windows Server 2003 compatibility list?
 
The HCL, for anyone trying to answer the question. I'll be back to edit in a few.

Edit: Well, kind of slim pickings. Here's what I get searching for "sata" within the storage/raid/tested driver category. So we have the LSI 2822 and 5844, the nstor 4700, the xyratex 4200, a gateway device (pun not intended) that I can't even find a link for, the SANNet II sata, and finally the Sun 3511. So, what to buy. I headed off to Froogle for the last result, only to find this. Ouch, let's hope that's a fluke. Hmm. Maybe not.

Unless I'm looking at completely the wrong HCL (a possibility, I admit!) I would rather spend the money on a car than on *anything* on the 2k3 HCL. I mean c'mon, $6580 for 1.2tb? With sata disks? Even 4tb for $12k seems pretty dang steep; with 400gb disks around $250 (I couldn't find a link from a store I'd buy from) that means the disks cost around $3k. That leaves a *lot* of money for a system around that. With $12k one could probably come close to building two 4tb computer-based systems that run Linux and use an approved FC HBA to talk to the Win2k3 systems ;)

 
Thanks, Unhappy... but I'm asking about controller cards, not storage subsystems.

I think the Adaptec card (AAR-2410SA) is only the SATA card on the list. Why didn't anyone here recommend it?

Even for Windows XP, the Areca card isn't on the compatibility list. What makes it worth running unsigned drivers?
 
Whoops. My bad.

The Adaptec is *clearly* outpaced. Everywhere. My favorite review didn't even include it because it's basically the same card as the LSI card (see page 10) which pretty much gets owned everywhere. It's a generation behind, and expensive - $275 at the cheapest I found it. You can get a far superior Highpoint 2320 (with twice the ports, and more speed despite being software-based!) for that.

WRT drivers; Areca has some of the best support in the business on other OSes - Linux drivers are built into the kernel (!), it's on the Solaris 10 HCL, and there are BSD drivers (which I haven't heard anything about). I have to say I trust Areca more than Adaptec to build good hardware and put good drivers behind that. Other than that obviously flaky and marketing-driven statement, I got nothing. How do you know there isn't a divide bug in the processor you're using?

 
unhappy_mage said:
How do you know there isn't a divide bug in the processor you're using?
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I think they've tightened-up testing, particularly in that area, these days.

I know a few Intel engineers, and friends with one or two. They've really got neat procedures for design and validation.

I'm running a HighPoint card (uh, 1640, I think) on one of my servers. It's my backup domain controller, but I also use it as a file server for all my image backups. It's not really under load, and I haven't had a drive fail yet, but it works great. I'm always curious about the array rebuild firmware.

I'm running a Promise card in my test database server (2240, IIRC). No problems so far, and it sees pretty good peak loads.

Neither of these are on the lists, but I'd not run something that wasn't on the list for a mission critical application... the listed cards might be slow, but DNF is worse than slow.
 
I imagine this is sort of necessary ;)

What exactly does HCL listing imply? I can't find anything about it in a few minutes of searching. Is this a more rigorous process than WHQL tests? I assume Microsoft has to digitally sign the drivers (hence all those warnings about unsigned drivers). How does the Windows Catalog tie in to all this? If a driver is supported for Windows 2000 (eg the 3ware 9550sx) does that have anything to do with its 2003 status?

 
I'm sorry; your antecedant isn't clear to me. Imagine what is necessary?

HCL means the driver has passed WHQL. (I can't remember if it means there's levels of passing, or just passing. There's a difference between Windows Server 2003 Datacenter and the rest of Windows Server 2003, for example. Maybe that's different tests, deeper stress, more memory, or so on -- multiple procesors, or something.)

Driver Signing for Windows
Designed for Microsoft Windows Logo
WHQL Testing Overview

The point of the logo program is that Microsoft has tested the driver and guarantees a certain level of quality and functionality.

Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 have different driver models, and a different kernel. So certification for Windows 2000 doesn't mean much for Windows 2003. There's much hardware that worked on Windows 2000 that is absolutely not supported on Windows 2003, such as interrupt steering.
 
Testing for divide problems and that sort of thing. It bit them once, after all.

Thanks for the links. WHQL has always been sort of a mystery to me. I guess the only real barriers to getting one's devices on the HCL is writing good drivers and investing the time into getting the paperwork done. And the $250-per-family, for small developers. Given that, I'm surprised Areca isn't certified yet. Maybe they're still in turnaround.

 
Well, Intel and AMD still have erratta. But they're much less severe, and hardly as obvious, these days.

unhappy_mage said:
I guess the only real barriers to getting one's devices on the HCL is writing good drivers and investing the time into getting the paperwork done. And the $250-per-family, for small developers. Given that, I'm surprised Areca isn't certified yet. Maybe they're still in turnaround.
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Yep. Writing good drivers is quite a hurdle. $250 is nothing, even to a small shop; it's about half the cost of a prototype printed circuit board.

Indeed, it is surprising that Areca hasn't certified. $250 is about what they charge for a single board. Why haven't they passed certification yet?

So, back to my question: why are people recommending boards that don't have certified drivers?
 
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