[CentOS] Serial ATA hardware raid.

[Alexander Dalloz]

Am Fr, den 15.04.2005 schrieb Franki um 19:11:

> I'm looking into setting up a SATA hardware raid, probably 5 to use with 
> CentOS 4. I chose hardware raid over software mostly because I like the 
> fact that the raid is transparent to the OS.
> 
> Does anyone know of any SATA controllers that are well tested for this 
> sort of usage?
> 
>  From what I can tell from googling, this is more or less where RHEL stands:
> Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 3 and the current version of Fedora
> support the following SATA chipsets:
> 
>       Intel's ICH5 SATA chipset
>       Silicon Image's SATA chipset

Those are no hardware RAID controllers. They are 'winraid' / 'fake raid'
as it is BIOS supported software RAID.
If you want real hardware RAID have a look at 3Ware's products.

> Does CentOS4 add anything to this as it is based on 2.6 kernel?

Kernel 2.6 too supports 3Ware controllers well.

> My question upon reading what I found on Google, is if it is true 
> hardware raid, shouldn't the OS not be able to tell it's raid at all?

Right, the system sees 1 drive rather than the independent drives. Thats
the difference between hardware RAID and software RAID.

> I'm assuming that the chipsets listed above are driver based hardware 
> raid? what I am after is a raid array based on true hardware raid such 
> that the OS see's just one drive, and the hardware firmware handles any 
> mirror/striping.

Correct :)

> Any suggestions?

Yes, 3Ware - from small controllers to those with RAID5 capability and
several SATA connectors.
ICP Vortex may be a good choice too. The stories about Adaptec
controllers do not invite to be interested in them.

> Franki

Alexander


-- 
Alexander Dalloz | Enger, Germany | GPG http://pgp.mit.edu 0xB366A773
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