Promise RAID Controller Question

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BuGaLoU

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 24, 2002
Messages
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I have a couple questions about the Promise FastTrax SX4000 series I have.

I am looking to rebuild it with larger disks and was wondering if it would support 4x 750 GB disks for a 2 TB RAID5 array.

Secondly, I was wondering if I had to by the Promise branding "super swap 1000" drive trays, vs some cheapy tray on new egg. The promise ones are 70 bucks, the ones on newegg are 10.

Any input?
 
BuGaLoU said:
Secondly, I was wondering if I had to buy the Promise branding "super swap 1000" drive trays, vs some cheapy tray on new egg. The promise ones are 70 bucks, the ones on newegg are 10.
Click to expand...
Definitely not. You can use whatever bay you want. There are quality differences between different trays. I am not a big fan of the single drive bays, I prefer multi-drive enclosures (I like these).

Back in the IDE days, I had a couple of enclosures that broke within about two years of getting them.
 
If you're going to spend the thousand bucks for a new array, I wouldn't buy it on IDE. IDE isn't designed for hotswapping, so the trays you mention are a bad idea in my opinion. I wrote up a summary of controller options on the market, which I (of course) recommend if you do consider buying a new controller. For $115 you could move to a pci-express controller that would handle 4 disks. Survey shows that IDE 750s are $37 more than sata ones. So buying sata disks would save you $38. Or you could buy a larger controller - a 2320, for example, would support 8 disks, and does OCE so you can add more disks later as budget or space constraints dictate. It's $246 at Newegg, or $214 refurbed. That's $94 more than the IDE disks plan, but it leaves you with room to expand in the future.

Lastly, the disks are a good deal cheaper at ZZF (as linked) than at, say, Newegg.

Just a thought :cool:
 
My server does not have any PCI-E slots, on regular PCI ones. I know I can run some of the 3ware PCI-X cards in there though just in the 33 MHz mode.

unhappy_mage said:
If you're going to spend the thousand bucks for a new array, I wouldn't buy it on IDE. IDE isn't designed for hotswapping, so the trays you mention are a bad idea in my opinion. I wrote up a summary of controller options on the market, which I (of course) recommend if you do consider buying a new controller. For $115 you could move to a pci-express controller that would handle 4 disks. Survey shows that IDE 750s are $37 more than sata ones. So buying sata disks would save you $38. Or you could buy a larger controller - a 2320, for example, would support 8 disks, and does OCE so you can add more disks later as budget or space constraints dictate. It's $246 at Newegg, or $214 refurbed. That's $94 more than the IDE disks plan, but it leaves you with room to expand in the future.

Lastly, the disks are a good deal cheaper at ZZF (as linked) than at, say, Newegg.

Just a thought :cool:
Click to expand...
 
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