What's a good RAID-1 controller?

[void]

I heard that the HPT370 RAID controller built in to my KT7-RAID doesn't do a
good job of detecting bad sectors. So does anyone know of a good controller
for RAID-1 and PATA drives? (preferably less than $100)

 

[Arno Wagner]

I heard that the HPT370 RAID controller built in to my KT7-RAID doesn't do a
good job of detecting bad sectors. So does anyone know of a good controller
for RAID-1 and PATA drives? (preferably less than $100)

Software?

Arno

 

[void]

Software?

How about the 3ware 7006-2? That's supposed to be a true hardware raid
controller.

 

[Arno Wagner]

How about the 3ware 7006-2? That's supposed to be a true hardware raid
controller.[/QUOTE]

3ware has a good name in the Linux community. That means a lot.
I have no personal experience with their controllers though.

Arno

 

[void]

3ware has a good name in the Linux community. That means a lot.
I have no personal experience with their controllers though.

I've looked at the manuals for the 3ware, Promise, Adaptec, and LSI Logic RAID
controllers (are there any other brands that are under $120?) and the 3ware
7006-2 seems to be the best one. It has a background scanner that can scan
your entire disks and try to correct errors and notify you of uncorrectable
errors. The others don't talk much about what they do if there are errors on
a disk. Unfortunately, the 3ware requires a PCI 2.2 slot running at 66 MHz,
and I believe my ancient KT7-RAID only has PCI 2.1 slots running at 33 MHz.

 

[Arno Wagner]

3ware has a good name in the Linux community. That means a lot.
I have no personal experience with their controllers though.

[/QUOTE]

I've looked at the manuals for the 3ware, Promise, Adaptec, and LSI
Logic RAID controllers (are there any other brands that are under
$120?) and the 3ware 7006-2 seems to be the best one. It has a
background scanner that can scan your entire disks and try to
correct errors and notify you of uncorrectable errors. The others
don't talk much about what they do if there are errors on a disk.

My experience with a more expensive Adaptec SATA RAID controller was
that it was basically unusable and did not even allow SMART
monitoring. Expensive trash.

Unfortunately, the 3ware requires a PCI 2.2 slot running at 66 MHz,
and I believe my ancient KT7-RAID only has PCI 2.1 slots running at
33 MHz.

Should be backwards compatible. AFAIK the standard requires it to
be. Since there are not that many 66MHz slots out there it would
also be stupid froma business POV to require it. It is more a
"also supports 66MHz PCI".

Arno

 

[void]

The only uncertainty now is whether the PCI slot needs to be 2.2 or if it can
be 2.1. I tried looking up information on some of those PCI-33 boards, to see
if they have PCI 2.2 or 2.1 slots, and that information isn't published very
often, so it's hard to tell.

This is impossible to figure out... except that I've seen some people mention
that PCI version is determined by chipset. The KT7-RAID uses the VIA KT133
chipset, and I found out that some Gigabyte boards with the KT133 have PCI 2.2
slots. So is it true that chipset determines PCI version, in which case my
KT7-RAID uses PCI 2.2 slots?

 

[Arno Wagner]

This is impossible to figure out... except that I've seen some
people mention that PCI version is determined by chipset. The
KT7-RAID uses the VIA KT133 chipset, and I found out that some
Gigabyte boards with the KT133 have PCI 2.2 slots. So is it true
that chipset determines PCI version, in which case my KT7-RAID uses
PCI 2.2 slots?

My guess is that the PCI 2.2 restriction if for 66MHz slots and
for PCI-X slots only and that an ordinary PCI 2.1 slot will work.

At some point you might just have to try it.

Arno

 

[void]

My guess is that the PCI 2.2 restriction if for 66MHz slots and
for PCI-X slots only and that an ordinary PCI 2.1 slot will work.

At some point you might just have to try it.

I called them and they said PCI 2.1 will work, so I'll give it a shot.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

This is impossible to figure out... except that I've seen some people mention
that PCI version is determined by chipset. The KT7-RAID uses the VIA KT133
chipset, and I found out that some Gigabyte boards with the KT133 have PCI 2.2
slots.

So is it true that chipset determines PCI version, in which case my
KT7-RAID uses PCI 2.2 slots?

What else would determine it, apart from the PCI bios? The slots are only copper.
Although, to be fair, there is the orientation of the notch on the physical connector
too. Not entirely sure if they used that to exclude some cards in PCI2.2 slots
(Not much useful info about PCI in the PCISIG FAQs).
I think that that is in PCI-3 only.