IDE RAID Recommendations?

[Khyron]

So I'm gonna splurge and get a few new bits - one of them being a dedicated IDE raid 5 card, instead of using the MB for raid 0.

I see the price is everywhere from 250-600 bucks. Adaptec is the iron horse, but the IDE raid card looks rather sparse compared to some of the new-comers.

Adaptec ATA RAID 2400A: 470$
Promise FastTrak SX4000 4-Channel: 239$ +(cost of 256M memory)
3Ware Escalade 7506-4LP Parallel ATA RAID: 410$

I (will) have 4 80G WD normal ATA-100 drives.

Just wondering if anyone else has gone down this path recently?

Khyron

[rage2]

I'm thinking of going the SX4000 or SX6000 path myself. RAID5! If you're not using RAID5, and just using RAID0 or RAID1 you can get away with a much lower end RAID card since it doesn't need a XOR engine on board.

Oh yea, check this thread:

http://forums.beyond.ca/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37051

We discussed this last week.

[Khyron]

I know - I posted in that thread. But it was mostly high end SCSI or low end 0/1 talk.

I'm strictly interested in which IDE RAID 5 controller I should buy. Will I get any stability advantages with the Adaptec? Obviously I don't have to worry about blowing a single drive, but if the card itself goes, can I use another model (I know cross-branding is almost always impossible). None of my main hardware boards (Sharky, Toms etc) have had a good IDE raid 5 comparison that I can find. 4 80 gig 7200 rpm drives should give me good speed gains with peace of mind.

Khyron

[rage2]

For RAID 5, remember that the faster you go in drives (transfer rate), the more work it is for the onboard XOR engine, and the sooner you'll hit the limits of the card's hardware. Same applies for more drives in the array. You'll hit a brickwall in ultimate transfer rate.

Since there are no RAID5 reviews like you said, it might be wise to invest in pricier hardware in the first place. This is assuming, of course, that the higher the price, the more powerful the onboard XOR engine. AFAIK, I haven't seen XOR engine specs published for different RAID5 cards, nor theoretical top transfer rates.

As for if the RAID card goes, what would happen is the new (different brand) card would probably not recognize the RAID5 setup. I don't believe there's a standard for how RAID is setup. If you're worried about that, either buy a spare card (assuming the data is REALLY important), or stick with RAID1. It's safe to say, however, that if the SX4000 fails and they don't make them anymore, the replacement model would likely be backwards compatible... assuming they're still in business down the line :).

Lots of things to factor in to choose the proper solution hehe.

[Khyron]

Yep - it's interesting for sure. This is for my home desktop, not a work machine BTW. So 4 channels would be more than enough. The issue is that as HD makers keep making them bigger and faster, and chop the warranties down to nothing, HD failures will become more common I think.

I'm pretty good with my backups - I have multiple machines that I copy back and forth to, and I burn most things to CD. I still have .gifs that were downloaded with tin on cuug with my 2400 modem. :D

I thought the speed increase would be high with raid-5 but actually its much slower than my current Raid0 (with a spare backup disk I copy all my crap to periodically). But having all 4 drives, and not having to worry about constantly copying mp3s, videos etc - it's all getting unwieldy to backup with 650 meg cds.

Khyron

[rage2]

Originally posted by Khyron
I'm pretty good with my backups - I have multiple machines that I copy back and forth to, and I burn most things to CD. I still have .gifs that were downloaded with tin on cuug with my 2400 modem. :D
My 1gb of modem downloaded porn has been gone for a long time now... haha.

[Khyron]

Ok I found the grail - 160 graphs with benchmarks on all three of the above, and some single disks.

http://tech-report.com/reviews/2002q4/ideraid/index.x?pg=1

I'm on page 15, and dammit some of these numbers are not making sense. Some of those cards are 3x slower at writing than others, but faster in other modes - crazy.

Khyron

[speedracer]

If your looking for less failures there is still no substitute with SCSI.

The SX6000 is good. But 3Ware IMO is a much better design. I found it a lot less fussy when you had to recover a HD failure and data was intact :thumbsup:.

You can recover data if you were to switch boards... but it's not fun to write your own driver.

For some reason I always run into issues with Promise....Solaris 9 ran without a hitch with Escalade 7506.. On the other had the SX6000 was a bitch to recognize and I ended up writing a driver with lots of help from a buddy.

[rage2]

Whew... just finished the article. Very interesting stuff! The SX4000 looks to be a great performer... but I'm surprised to see RAID 5 is slower than the other RAID levels... maybe it's got a fairly slow CPU for XOR.

I'm shocked that the Adaptec did so poorly... that and its only using PCI 33 and not PCI 66!

[rage2]

Originally posted by speedracer
The SX6000 is good. But 3Ware IMO is a much better design. I found it a lot less fussy when you had to recover a HD failure and data was intact :thumbsup:.
My TX4000 was awesome when a 120GB drive failed on the beyond database server. I brought in a replacement drive, shut the system down, popped in the new drive, and booted up without even going to the RAID menu. I thought I missed the menu or something! Once I got into windows, it was already 3% into the rebuild. Talk about hassle free hehe.

[Khyron]

Well the overall review says... they all suck at something. The 3ware has crappy benches, the promise kicks butt except it eats CPU and the adaptec, well, it's crap especially in raid1.

Now I'm rethinking if going raid5 is even a good option for my home desktop. SCSI is out of the question for noise and money reasons. I already have 2 80 WD drives.

Khyron

[Khyron]

UPDATE: Well I bought the Promise S4000, with 128 megs of micron 133, with 4 80G WD SEs. And dammit if there isn't a lag/stuttering problem. Video especially (even small 4 meg vids) gets about halfway then stutters like mad. I have a gig of ram so once the thing is cached, it's fine. I've sent an email to Promise to find out what the fuck is going on - the diagnostics say no errors, etc.

Khyron

[Khyron]

The Promise tech knew exactly what the bug was, and emailed me a beta driver that was not available for download on the site. Installed that, and everything is speedy. Not quite as quick as my old raid 0 setup for some things, but definately does other things way faster (file copies between partitions, defrags etc).

So overall I'm happy with it. (But if you get one, MEASURE your case. I have exactly 1/4 inch clearance between the card and my harddrives, and that's in the only slot that fits. Anywhere else it would bump into the ata cables or the power cables). The Adaptec may be huge at 12 inches but this thing is at least 10.

Khyron

[Khyron]

Update:

On Wednesday I was just checking mail when my computer locked up. Rebooted, ARRAY FAILURE. Check the drives, Drive 1 and 2 are online and ready, drives 3 and 4 are "missing". As you know, Raid 5 can only tollerate 1 lost drive, not 2.

I change the 2 drives around with the other 2. Whup - only 1 drive shows up (drive 3). I try doing a master slave combo on one of the channels - no go, only 1 drive per channel. I switch the channels around a bunch more getting everything from no drives to 1,3 to 2,3 and even a 1,4 but never 3 at once (all I would need to copy files).

I took the card into Memory Express (I always keep receipts for stuff like this) and ask for a new card because mine is obviously fucked right? Well they just called a few hours ago to tell me that the card is working perfectly for them with 4 drives.

I brought my drives in and they let me come upstairs to see them being tested. Sure enough, drives 1 and 2 show up, 3 and 4 are "free". We switch the drives around, still 1 and 2 showing (but in the other 2 slots). The tech thinks it could have been caused by leaving the drives in "Cable Select" mode. Technically it shouldn't matter as there is only 1 drive allowed per interface, but he said he's seen the software screw it up before. I wasn't aware that cable select with no other drives was different than master with no drives.

Anyway I'm going to reformat and try 1 more time with 4 drives (as master) and see how it goes.

Props to Memory Express for doing the testing in a reasonable time and being totally fair about the work.

And let this be a warning - nothing saves you from having to do backups!

Khyron

[Xtrema]

Since then Promise now has S150 for SATA drives. It's around $100, and connects up to 4 SATA drive.

And if you're buying a new MB anyway and wants RAID. The ASUS K8N (Athlon 64/NForce2) has 2 SATA & 2 IDE ports that will do RAID 0/1 and another 4 SATA ports that'll do RAID 5 for around $170-$180. It should be promise chipset. It sounds really good on spec. The only reservation is, drivers from ASUS for RAID has been pretty buggy in the pass and late with updates.

One more tibit, 200GB SATA drives are now only $160 on the street. SATA drives are now cheaper than old school ATA.

[Hollywood]

For the home use RAID is only good for redundant data, you will see hardly or no improvement in speeds.