Re: Promise or 3Ware?
hi ya dman
On Wed, 24 Mar 2004, Derrick 'dman' Hudson wrote:
> I now need to buy some hardware to set up a 2-disk RAID-1 array for a
> server. The server will run debian with kernel 2.6. The cost
> (money-wise) is not really an issue. The disks are ATA/133 (already
> purchased). Which would you recommend, and why?
>
> Promise FastTrak TX2000 controller
> with 2 Promise SuperSwap 1000 host-swappable drive bays
>
> 3Ware Escalade 7006-2 controller (or 7506-4LP model)
> with 1 3Ware RDC-400 hot-swappable drive cage
>
> Say, what's the difference between a 32-bit/66MHz and a 64-bit/66MHz
> PCI card? Are there limitations as to what motherboards they will
> work on? This particular machine is an older PII.
32bit pci ... cheaper motherboard ( say $50 - $200 range )
64bit pci ... $250 - $500 motherboards
- 64bit pci cards are also more expensive
you can obviously transfer more data on 64bit pci w/o running
into bandwidth/bottleneck problems on the pci slots
if $$$ is readily available .. buy the 3ware
if raid monitoring is an issue ... use sw raid1 instead
nobody recommends promise hw raid controllers ( doesnt "work right" )
work right is: ...
- no data loss ... no hand holding ..
- pull the disk out while you're writing a 2GB file to disks
and insert a fresh disk snd see what happens
( a good raid1 should merrily just write and mirror itself
( to the new/freshly inserted disk
- while the disk ( hda/ sda ) is out...
reboot the system and see if you can do a handsoff
( keyboardless ) boot
-----------
since you gonna spend the $200 - $400 fro the hw raid card..
- you may as well do the same benchmark tests with sw raid setup
and see if the $$$ spent is worth it
- disk speed performance
- raid1 mirroring working or not
c ya
alvin
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