[Pc_Support] Re: Any recommendations on U160 SCSI RAID cards?

[Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith at ieee.org>]

From: Jason Boxman <jasonb at edseek.com>
> New.  It's for the office's dual P3 Coppermine setup.  It's a ServerWorks
> III LE deal.  This one has a 64/66 and a 64/33 on different channels.  It's
> a 2U case.

Then the LSI Logic MegaRAID SCSI 320-2X is probably what you want:  
http://www.lsilogic.com/products/megaraid/scsi_320_2x.html  

It'll set you back $500, but it's probably worth it if you want performance.

> Is there anything to be had that'll be happy with a box without PCI-X?  I
> imagine those PCI-X cards are backwards compatible with a 64/66 slot?

Yes, it is PCI2.2 compatible in a 64 at 66MHz slot, as well as PCI-X 1.0
compatible in a 64 at 66/133MHz slot.  The only thing is that it needs to
be a 3.3V slot, which I think those mainboards are (I'll check).

> In this case, the cable situation is strained.  It's hard to get U160 cables
> that'll fit in this case, since it's an upgrade of an existing rackmount
> system with regular 68-pin drives and no hot swap bays or plans for any.
> I won't be able to split the RAID 5 into two cables of two and two drives
> each due to space and difficulty-of-obtaining-cabling issues.
> I would leap for joy if I can recycle the existing, five head U160 cable we
> have so we can run two of the six disks in hardware RAID 1, though.

Well, you can always plug in things externally.  But yeah, I understand
your desire.  In reality, SCSI LVD UTP cables aren't that much cost-wise.
They can be had for $15-30.

> (With a one port SCSI RAID I'd need to do software RAID 1, which is fine
> with me, but I'd rather just do it via hardware if the option exists.)

These things do RAID-50.  So you could stripe across two 3-drive RAID-5
volumes for a good combination of throughput and efficiency.  I.e., out
of 6 drives, you would get 4 drives equivalent, but reads _and_ writes
would be interleaved over each channel and 3-disc RAID-5 volume.



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