What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

[Ming Zhang]

Hi, I want to setup a software raid and lvm configuration with 2-4TB raw
disk space. I wonder if you can give me some suggestions on what kind of
sata controllers are friendly to my purpose? :)


thx


ming 

Re: What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

[Hendrik Visage]

On Sun, Jan 18, 2004 at 03:54:44PM -0500, Ming Zhang wrote:
> Hi, I want to setup a software raid and lvm configuration with 2-4TB raw
> disk space. I wonder if you can give me some suggestions on what kind of
> sata controllers are friendly to my purpose? :)

Those supported properly in the kernel :)

At present I'm using the onboard Via & Promise (20378) for SATA + (evms)
software RAID, but there are others that have different views on which
controller(s) to use.

Hendrik

Re: What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

[Joël Bourquard]

On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 22:29, Hendrik Visage wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 18, 2004 at 03:54:44PM -0500, Ming Zhang wrote:
> > Hi, I want to setup a software raid and lvm configuration with 2-4TB raw
> > disk space. I wonder if you can give me some suggestions on what kind of
> > sata controllers are friendly to my purpose? :)
> 
> Those supported properly in the kernel :)
> 
> At present I'm using the onboard Via & Promise (20378) for SATA + (evms)
> software RAID, but there are others that have different views on which
> controller(s) to use.
> 

Unfortunately an onboard SATA RAID controller will not be enough for
2-4TB.

I'm looking to build the exact same thing (at least 2TB) using 256GB
SATA disks.

If money is no issue, the 8- or 12-port 3ware SATA RAID controllers have
excellent linux support.

For software RAID, I think it's overkill.. why buy a RAID coprocessor
when you don't actually use it ?

I think I'll go with two Highpoint 1820 (8-port) PCI-X controllers and
see how it works..

Linux support wasn't their strong point in the past, but it seems they
released an "open-source" kernel module on 2nd January, 2004.

Maybe a RAID guru can have a look at it, and see if it's a marketing
joke or not ?

Anyway, for the price I think I'll take the risk and order two of them
next week.

Regards,
Joël


> Hendrik
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Re: What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

[Ming Zhang]

thx.

I found that in 2.4.x kernel, there are not much sata support. In 2.6
there are some. and basing on that sata linxu status report, i think
promise and serverworks should be good choices i guess. i find a promise
4 port card. but i do not know which card use server works chips.

just feel curious why u use evms not lvm? :)

ming


On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 16:29, Hendrik Visage wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 18, 2004 at 03:54:44PM -0500, Ming Zhang wrote:
> > Hi, I want to setup a software raid and lvm configuration with 2-4TB raw
> > disk space. I wonder if you can give me some suggestions on what kind of
> > sata controllers are friendly to my purpose? :)
> 
> Those supported properly in the kernel :)
> 
> At present I'm using the onboard Via & Promise (20378) for SATA + (evms)
> software RAID, but there are others that have different views on which
> controller(s) to use.
> 
> Hendrik

Re: What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

[Ming Zhang]

On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 16:51, Joël Bourquard wrote:
> On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 22:29, Hendrik Visage wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 18, 2004 at 03:54:44PM -0500, Ming Zhang wrote:
> > > Hi, I want to setup a software raid and lvm configuration with 2-4TB raw
> > > disk space. I wonder if you can give me some suggestions on what kind of
> > > sata controllers are friendly to my purpose? :)
> > 
> > Those supported properly in the kernel :)
> > 
> > At present I'm using the onboard Via & Promise (20378) for SATA + (evms)
> > software RAID, but there are others that have different views on which
> > controller(s) to use.
> > 
> 
> Unfortunately an onboard SATA RAID controller will not be enough for
> 2-4TB.
> 
yes, so that is why i want to buy a separate sata controller.


> I'm looking to build the exact same thing (at least 2TB) using 256GB
> SATA disks.
> 
> If money is no issue, the 8- or 12-port 3ware SATA RAID controllers have
> excellent linux support.
money is always an issue. :)


> 
> For software RAID, I think it's overkill.. why buy a RAID coprocessor
> when you don't actually use it ?
> 
> I think I'll go with two Highpoint 1820 (8-port) PCI-X controllers and
> see how it works..
> 
> Linux support wasn't their strong point in the past, but it seems they
> released an "open-source" kernel module on 2nd January, 2004.
> 
> Maybe a RAID guru can have a look at it, and see if it's a marketing
> joke or not ?
> 
> Anyway, for the price I think I'll take the risk and order two of them
> next week.
yes, that price sounds great. hope to get u comments on that card soon.
thanks a lot.

> 
> Regards,
> Joël
> 
> 
> > Hendrik
> > -
> > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> > More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 

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Re: What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

[Hendrik Visage]

On Sun, Jan 18, 2004 at 05:26:02PM -0500, Ming Zhang wrote:

> just feel curious why u use evms not lvm? :)

EVMS just works in my opinion, and have a very "enterprise ready"
feel to it. I'm very sorry that the major distros haven't yet added it
to their installers.

LVM2 ?? I've used the early EVMS 1 and LVM 1, and EVMS had a cli, curses
and GUI (still have all three) while LVM only had several cli programs.

EVMS I believe with the curses interface is "childs play" so easy is the
operations of it.

Hendrik

Re: What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

[Joël Bourquard]

Hi,

It seems we have the same priorities :-)

However, before I rush and order these two Highpoint 1820's ($300), it
may be wise to ask the linux serial-ata specialist:

Jeff Garzik
jgarzik@pobox.com

I'll e-mail him tomorrow. May I provide your e-mail address to him ? He
was skeptical about Highpoint's linux support, but maybe things have
changed since 2/1/2004 (when Highpoint posted an opensource module for
the 1820 controller).

Building the server is a priority to me, but I must wait for a few days
anyway (Paypal refuses a transaction, when it shouldn't).

Anyway, if we can get a definitive word about this controller, I think
it might help a lot of people on Linux-RAID... I mean, a 64-bit 133MHz
SATA controller with 8 ports, for about $150 is really nice :-)

So.. if you're still interested, please let me know what you think,
before I e-mail Jeff.

Best Regards,
Joël


On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 23:29, Ming Zhang wrote:
> On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 16:51, Joël Bourquard wrote:
> > On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 22:29, Hendrik Visage wrote:
> > > On Sun, Jan 18, 2004 at 03:54:44PM -0500, Ming Zhang wrote:
> > > > Hi, I want to setup a software raid and lvm configuration with 2-4TB raw
> > > > disk space. I wonder if you can give me some suggestions on what kind of
> > > > sata controllers are friendly to my purpose? :)
> > > 
> > > Those supported properly in the kernel :)
> > > 
> > > At present I'm using the onboard Via & Promise (20378) for SATA + (evms)
> > > software RAID, but there are others that have different views on which
> > > controller(s) to use.
> > > 
> > 
> > Unfortunately an onboard SATA RAID controller will not be enough for
> > 2-4TB.
> > 
> yes, so that is why i want to buy a separate sata controller.
> 
> 
> > I'm looking to build the exact same thing (at least 2TB) using 256GB
> > SATA disks.
> > 
> > If money is no issue, the 8- or 12-port 3ware SATA RAID controllers have
> > excellent linux support.
> money is always an issue. :)
> 
> 
> > 
> > For software RAID, I think it's overkill.. why buy a RAID coprocessor
> > when you don't actually use it ?
> > 
> > I think I'll go with two Highpoint 1820 (8-port) PCI-X controllers and
> > see how it works..
> > 
> > Linux support wasn't their strong point in the past, but it seems they
> > released an "open-source" kernel module on 2nd January, 2004.
> > 
> > Maybe a RAID guru can have a look at it, and see if it's a marketing
> > joke or not ?
> > 
> > Anyway, for the price I think I'll take the risk and order two of them
> > next week.
> yes, that price sounds great. hope to get u comments on that card soon.
> thanks a lot.
> 
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Joël
> > 
> > 
> > > Hendrik
> > > -
> > > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> > > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> > > More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> > 
> 

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Re: What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

[Ming Zhang]

Thanks for the information. I will compare both of them to decide my
final choice.


Ming

On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 18:02, Hendrik Visage wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 18, 2004 at 05:26:02PM -0500, Ming Zhang wrote:
> 
> > just feel curious why u use evms not lvm? :)
> 
> EVMS just works in my opinion, and have a very "enterprise ready"
> feel to it. I'm very sorry that the major distros haven't yet added it
> to their installers.
> 
> LVM2 ?? I've used the early EVMS 1 and LVM 1, and EVMS had a cli, curses
> and GUI (still have all three) while LVM only had several cli programs.
> 
> EVMS I believe with the curses interface is "childs play" so easy is the
> operations of it.
> 
> Hendrik
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

[Mark Hahn]

> > just feel curious why u use evms not lvm? :)
> 
> EVMS just works in my opinion, and have a very "enterprise ready"

that, and even the presence of a GUI, are excellent reasons to use Windows.
they're not useful arguments in the Linux world.

Re: What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

[Mark Hahn]

> However, before I rush and order these two Highpoint 1820's ($300), it

afaikt, HPT's driver is one that plugs into SCSI.  this by itself doesn't
mean it's bad (since libata and 3ware also do so, and are good).  the problem
is that it's not clear how well HPT will maintain the driver, updating it 
when the SCSI layers above it change (or the kernel in general).

I'm going with promise 4-port cards: most server boards have two PCIX
buses, it gets painful to put more than 8 disks in a chassis anyway.
these days, a disk will do 70 MB/s, so expecting 560 MB/s out of a single 
card is probably over-optimistic anyway.

> it might help a lot of people on Linux-RAID... I mean, a 64-bit 133MHz
> SATA controller with 8 ports, for about $150 is really nice :-)

I don't mind two cheaper cards for the same thing.  it's easy to argue
that you shouldn't have the controller as a single point of failure, too.

regards, mark hahn.

Re: What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

[Hendrik Visage]

On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 02:10:57PM -0500, Mark Hahn wrote:
> > > just feel curious why u use evms not lvm? :)
> > 
> > EVMS just works in my opinion, and have a very "enterprise ready"
> 
> that, and even the presence of a GUI, are excellent reasons to use Windows.
> they're not useful arguments in the Linux world.

Sometimes just the option for a GUI view would sell it to the da^H^Hmanager
who would like to see where the disks etc. are.

Hendrik

Re: What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

[Joël Bourquard]

Mark,

Thanks a lot for your answer...

On Mon, 2004-01-19 at 20:19, Mark Hahn wrote:
> > However, before I rush and order these two Highpoint 1820's ($300), it
> 
> afaikt, HPT's driver is one that plugs into SCSI.  this by itself doesn't
> mean it's bad (since libata and 3ware also do so, and are good).  the problem
> is that it's not clear how well HPT will maintain the driver, updating it 
> when the SCSI layers above it change (or the kernel in general).
> 

I understand your concerns about the future !
Fortunately (at least for me) it won't matter much, because I don't need
top-notch software in the fileserver.

Since we talk SCSI, is it still possible to monitor the S.M.A.R.T health
attributes of the SATA disks when plugged into one of these controllers?
I'd be lost with 16 disks and no smartctl..

By the way, there's something I didn't grasp yet..  is libata a library
which is needed for SATA drivers to run ? Or does libata rather mean
"open-source SATA-to-SCSI driver" ?

In the second case, with a HPT controller there would be no need for
libata, correct ?

> I'm going with promise 4-port cards: most server boards have two PCIX
> buses, it gets painful to put more than 8 disks in a chassis anyway.
> these days, a disk will do 70 MB/s, so expecting 560 MB/s out of a single 
> card is probably over-optimistic anyway.
> 

Good point. With 8 disks, I'd have taken two 4-port controllers too.

> > it might help a lot of people on Linux-RAID... I mean, a 64-bit 133MHz
> > SATA controller with 8 ports, for about $150 is really nice :-)
> 
> I don't mind two cheaper cards for the same thing.  it's easy to argue
> that you shouldn't have the controller as a single point of failure, too.
> 

Indeed. Also if there are two arrays (I think it's needed because of the
2TB limit), one could split the work on the 2 controllers... and on the
two PCI-X bridges :-)

> regards, mark hahn.

Regards
Joël

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Re: What SATA controller for software raid and/or lvm?

[Mark Hahn]

> However, before I rush and order these two Highpoint 1820's ($300), it

I was looking at them too, but was swayed towards promise by:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/promise-fts150-tx4_7.html

my main concern with the nice ($US 65) SATA 150TX4 boards was whether
their 32x66 interface would be enough.  the review demonstrates that 
>200 MB/s can be pumped through each, which is what I'm looking for...

regards, mark hahn.