Raid/scsi card for P3 dually?

U

u2slow

Weaksauce
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May 12, 2006
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I didn't get any response in the disk storage section, maybe its more applicable here?

I picked up my Supermicro 370DLE Coppermine dually this week.

I have enough scsi drives (might get a few more) so I'd like to play around with RAID. I'm a little lost on the controllers. Would be nice to utilize the 64-bit slots, and maybe have a small cache on it. Primarily looking at ebay & craigslist stuff.

Recommendations?
 
what kind of drives are those? Ultra3 (160), U320? Are they a little older?

The problem is, even the Ultra3 controllers are still a little pricey. I'm guessing you're looking for something below $100, right?
 
All my drives are UW and U2W era. Here's my inventory:
1x 2GB 68-pin
6x 9GB 68-pin
2x 18GB 80-pin
1x 36GB 80-pin

I'm using 2940UW cards.... and I can easily get my hands on a u160 pci-x dual-cannel version. Are the add-in RAID cards worthwhile, or is there a signficant performance difference going that route?

I have to be careful on eBay since not all merchants will ship/sell to Canada. I did find this one though.
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...30026325315&rd=1&sspagename=STRK:MEWA:IT&rd=1
 
I've got a couple to AMI 493's in my dualies.
Also known as Dell Perc3/ DC's. Dual U160, should be under $80
 
I've got a Dell Perc2/DC (rebranded AMI 467, Enterprise 1500) in mine. Does Ultra2W, uses a 64bit slot, works great, and it's cheap to find on ebay.
 
I picked up a Mylex AcceleRAID170 w/32MB cache. I'll see how it works out :D
 
ambit said:
I've got a couple to AMI 493's in my dualies.
Also known as Dell Perc3/ DC's. Dual U160, should be under $80
Click to expand...

I've got one of these with a 128 MB Battery Backup unit. Very good card. I'm not using it any more, PM me if you're interested in it.
 
The Mylex are awesome, affordable cards. I have one myself. You made a good choice there..

If you're still unsure about a few things with SCSI..
Technically you can have a UW and U2W device on the same chain, but you won't be getting the best performance. Having both of those interfaces on the same chain would yield you UW transfer rates (40 MB/s) and not U2W (80 MB/s).
This really only applies to the HBAs that you're using. If you had an Adaptec U160 series adapter, you'd be able to run both interfaces with no issue (something called FlexSCSI or SCSI Flex, don't remember off hand).

So, in your scenario, it'd probably be most beneficial to use the 2940UW. It has two channels (each 68-pin), one is U2W, and the other either Wide or UW. If the Mylex is a two channel, then hell, go for that.

And don't forget adapters for the 80-pin drives..
SCSI rules, you should have a pretty kicking box.
 
PERC2/DC-esque card will probably give you the best results, since SCSI steps down to the speed of the slowest device on the chain. If you put a mix of U2W and and UW drives on the same chain, everything will run at the UW speed. Should still be pretty solid, you simply won't be getting the best bang for your buck. If you separate out all the UW drives onto one channel and all the U2W drives onto the other, you'll be getting top speed for whatever logical drives (arrays, whatever you want to call 'em) you set up that way.

One random side note -- if you see a good deal on a PERC2/QC, I'd grab it over other cards. It's an Adaptec, not an AMI, and will outpace a hell of a lot from that generation.
 
I was going to report back *after* I had it running, but that's taking too long :eek: I started piecing it together last night though.

The Mylex card came as a package deal - part of which included six 73GB u160 SCA drives, and a 7-device backplane :cool: I think I will use those six for the array, plus a smaller drive for the boot.

I'm used to the performance of a plain 2940UW controller. This will no doubt be an improvement. It will be fun to dabble with Linux once again. :D
 
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