RE: Follow-up: Worst night ever...
On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, Michael Kahle wrote:
> Thanks to the both of you for your comments. My boss gave me the go ahead
> to purchase a Hardware RAID controller. I figured this would be a more
> robust solution that the Software RAID. Any suggestions on a brand? I am
> going to install Debian Woody on this computer so ideally I would want the
> controller to be very well supported under Debian. I would love it if it
> would be natively supported during setup, or as a preloaded module.
Definately go for the 3ware 7500 series. I have one of those in our mail
server, with 4 40 gig drives on it, setup as a pair of raid-1's.
(/var/spool/mail on one set, / on the other) Very quick, especially
considering that it is on merely a dual p3/600.
In your case, the 2.4bf kernel supports the 3ware out of the box, so you
can just put your machine together, setup your raid volumes, and then
install debian right on the /dev/sd? device.
You don't need to compile in raid support on your kernel. You do need to
make sure you have scsi disk support compiled in though.
You will be able to install to a raid5 device, with / on it. Hardware
raid is very nice :)
What I had to do from my previous non-raid setup:
I recompiled the kernel with 3ware support. Pulled out the old disk for
now, installed the 3ware 7500-4 and setup the pair of raid's, verified
they worked.
Rebooted with the old disk again, the raid1's came up by themselves, and
then i just copied the old disk to the new volumes, and made it all
bootable, and I was done. Pulled the old disk, and set it aside. Very
simple, very clean.
> I can fit a 64 bit pci card into this thing, and if it will yield faster
> access, I would be willing to go for it. It is just going to be these six
I think the 7500's are 64 bit capable, but can't remember for sure. Fits
just fine in a 32 bit slot for sure. The A/C guys are still here
hogging my server room, else I'd find the box and look for you.
www.3ware.com will tell you for sure. This was very much a install and
forget setup!
> drives hooked up to it, so I don't need one that has 4 external array ports
> on the back or anything fancy like that. Six drives only, perhaps one
> external port for later use... But unlikely. Famous last words... :)
You want the 7500-8 then. 8 onboard connectors, leaving you with two
free. There is also a 7500-4 and 7500-12 available. I think it comes
with the 8 cables you'll need, as well.
I didn't even bother installing the 3ware software that came with the
card, there is enough support built into the kernel to make it work just
fine. Just remember it's not /dev/hd? anymore, it's /dev/sd?.
Mike
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