[CentOS] Hardware RAID Controller

Lee W wrote
> However I've noticed that it is a 64-Bit PCI Card.  Can I still use this 
> in a 32-Bit Slot.  I think that I read something once that said it would 
> work but at a reduced bandwidth.

Joshua Baker-LePain wrote:
>Page 16 of the Installation Guide says a 32bit slot is fine.

From: Peter Farrow <peter at farrows.org>
> I use one of my 8500-8s in a 32bit slot on an MSI Dual PIII
> motherboard with no problems...

Two things of note:  

1)  66MHz capable cards

The "6" in 7506 and 8506 indicate it is 66MHz capable.
The 7500 (fka 7850) and 8500 are 33MHz capable, as are
all prior models.

All 7000/8000 series cards are 64-bit _except_ the
7000-2 (fka 7200) and 7006-2 (66MHz, but 32-bit).

2)  Multiple PCI/PCI-X busses

The most important consideration beyond bandwidth is the
PCI bus.  I have seen far too many people stick a 3Ware card
into a system that has a _single_ 32-bit at 33MHz PCI bus.

Back in the 1999-2001 timeframe, I made a buttload of money
just coming in and ripping out i440BX and i440GX mainboards
and putting in ServerWorks ServerSet IIILE/HE mainboards for
Pentium II/III systems.

3-4x performance is achievable by just getting the storage and
NIC on separate PCI (or PCI-X) busses.  Especially at today's
disk transfer rates and GbE on the same system.

[ SIDE NOTE:  A good GbE card with 256KB SRAM and using
9000 byte jumbo frames also helps. ]



--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org