[KLUG Hardware] Re: SCSI card recommendation

[Bryan J. Smith]

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On Tue, 2002-11-05 at 08:31, Bruce Smith wrote:
> To save TheBS a little typing, I'm well aware of 3Ware RAID controllers,
> I own one at home.  I looking for a RAID controller that uses SCSI HDDs
> this time since I already own all the SCSI HDDs I need for this PC. :-)

Understood (and thanx for saving me some typing ;-).

If cost is not an issue, anything with a StrongARM chip rocks.  You'll
find 2-4 channel cards from Mylex and, now, Adaptec that feature such
on-board microcontrollers.  Although Adaptec does support some RAID
cards on Linux (not regular host adapters, but for RAID they do), the
StrongARM-powered 5000-series is not.  So that leaves Mylex who is, not
surprisingly, owned by IBM.

>From a cost perspective, I've seen plenty of older, unused DPT (now
owned by Adaptec) RAID cards on the market.  DPT used to support Linux,
as well as just about every non-Wintel platform, which resulted in
excellent, board cross-platform support -- thanx largely to their full
I2O-compliance in their Intel i960 microcontroller driven desins.  I've
seen brand new, single-channel cards with 32-64MB SDRAM on-board for
$50-100 at various outlets.

Another, lesser-known vendor is ICP-Vortex.  This smaller, foreign
vendor caters to many OSes, including full Linux support, and provides
"intelligent" drivers for their products.  When I say "intelligent," I
mean their cards support not just RAID volumes, but non-disk devices on
the controllers -- many times they include an older SE/UW channel in
addition to the LVD/Ultra80-320 channels for disk drives.  But then
there's the cost, you'll pay quite a bit for ICP-Vortex products --
really to the point where Mylex with regular SE/UW SCSI card for
non-disk SCSI devices is cheaper (and usually faster, at the high-end at
least).

--=20
Bryan J. Smith, E.I.            Contact Info:  http://thebs.org
A+/i-Net+/Linux+/Network+/Server+ CCNA CIWA CNA SCSA/SCWSE/SCNA
---------------------------------------------------------------
The more government chooses for you, the less freedom you have.

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