[XCSSA] I hate Silicon Image...

[X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio]

On Jun 12, 2009, at 10:33 AM, X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio  
wrote:

> X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio wrote:
>> On Jun 12, 2009, at 9:53 AM, X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio
>> wrote:
>>
>>> X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio wrote:
>>>> On Jun 12, 2009, at 7:44 AM, X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio wrote:
>>> snippy snip
>>>>> I had a motherboard with that sata chipset that was from 2003 I
>>>>> think.
>>>>> Yes it was not very good.  I think the 3112 was the first chipset
>>>>> that
>>>>> silimage ever made for sata.
>>>> Yeah that sounds about right. Both my SATA cards are from 2004
>>>> (including the MegaRAID). I had tried using my non-RAID card and it
>>>> doesn't even recognize the 1TB drives. When I tried using the card
>>>> with FreeBSD, it would just kernel panic, so I'm pretty sure it's a
>>>> very terrible chipset. Supposedly the newer chipsets (3124+) are  
>>>> much
>>>> better.
>>>>
>>>> From looking online, it looks like the performance issues are in  
>>>> part
>>>> due to the driver issues inherent in the card, but also an ugly
>>>> compatibility hack with Seagate drives which basically nukes
>>>> performance. I think there's a work-around, but it's all for  
>>>> kernels
>>>> much older than the one that ships with Ubuntu. I might try a newer
>>>> kernel, but I used Ubuntu so I didn't have to end up doing that all
>>>> the time (though I don't mind doing it so much).
>>>>
>>>> Oh well. I've only got about 80 more hours until the RAID has
>>>> finished
>>>> rebuilding :P
>>>
>>> FWIW, even though I know it's old and was cheap, the 3112 is still a
>>> solid performer on a ST3320620AS - 60MB/sec easy. This is, however,
>>> under NetBSD. I haven't tried it under Linux; the Linux box is using
>>> the
>>> onboard nforce junk.
>>>
>>> I haven't tried the 3112 with anything larger thana 750GB, mind you.
>>> Holding off on upgrading anything in this machine until I can put a
>>> real
>>> RAID in it ;)
>>
>> Meh, the "real" RAID controller performance was better, but not as
>> high as I wanted (though I didn't try very hard to optimize it). It's
>> pretty old though (MegaRAID 150-6) - newer cards probably work a lot
>> better. I would say for a dedicated server, such as DB server, a
>> hardware RAID makes a lot of sense. As would it on a gaming rig, I
>> suppose. Software RAID is pretty hot in Linux though. Of course it's
>> only as good as the drivers that control the hardware :)
>>
>> This is the first time I've had significant issues with the 3112  
>> since
>> the FreeBSD fiasco (which was like 2 years ago). However, I have  
>> since
>> changes OSes (to Ubuntu from Gentoo) so that could be part of it.  
>> Like
>> I said, I did read some Seagates had issues, although my old Seagates
>> didn't have any problems. However, I was running those on the  
>> hardware
>> RAID controller.
>>
>
> Oh, the reason I want a real raid controller isn't for performance,  
> it's
> because my home fileserver is an abysmal collection of 5 drives on 5
> mount points, with no proper redundancy. It's a ticking timebomb. My  
> own
> fault, but still, yuck :(
>

LVM and software RAID could still help with that. In fact, software  
RAID can now do online resizing. It was crazy, I was able to resize a  
RAID5 online, expand the space for LVM online, and even resized the  
file-system online (ext3 and xfs can both do that). You can also do  
crazy things with partitions + RAID. That can help get around having  
different drive sizes (just be careful about what is actually  
redundant).

That said, I'm actually looking to get rid of my RAID controller. I  
can't just yet because it's the only thing that works with my SATA  
drives (with the BIOS disabled as noted above). Once I switch to  
another controller, I was planning on selling it since I was going to  
use software RAID and such.

It supports up to 6 drives, 32-bit or 64-bit PCI and has the battery  
(which still works, although it is a bit old at this point). The only  
downside is that it doesn't support SATA II, so it's limited to 150MB/ 
sec per drive. Still, it works great. I've been using it on my old  
RAID5 for over a year. I would keep using it but since I'm on the  
power saving kick, I need the ability to put my drives to sleep (which  
this controller cannot do).

Tim S.