On Thu, Jun 08, 2006 at 08:08:57PM +0200, Lazy wrote:
2006/6/6, Feizhou feizhou@graffiti.net:
Forget this proprietary software raid drivers. Just use the kernel software raid capabilities. There has yet to appear a company that manufactures bios on a chip raid cards that provide adequate or even minimal linux driver support.
(please don't tell me that 3ware is the only make to use, tw_cli is not exactly user friendly).
If you don't like hardware raid then there is nothing else for you.
Check out areca. The driver is in tree (writen by areca). And it looks like they are actively supporting linux.
There was some nice performance comparison betwean linux compatible sata raid cards and areca performed really well. If my memory serves me well it was significantly faster then 3ware. Can't find the url now :(. So i have no arguments to support it now. But certainly areca it's worth a try.
I don't think the areca drivers are in the kernel tree yet - I believe they're slated for inclusion in possibly 2.6.18. Certainly the CentOS4 kernels don't include areca support.
They are pretty decent cards, but I wouldn't use them for boot disks until they actually are in the stock kernel. For RHEL5/CentOS5 they might be good.
Cheers, Gavin