[NTLUG:Discuss] Linux Hardware RAID 1 card recommendation?

[Stuart Johnston]

Sounds like you have SATA drives not SCSI.  Seagate doesn't list a 160GB 
SCSI drive on their website.  SCSI drive capacities generally don't seem 
to be rounded the same way ATA drives are.  73GB or 146GB would be more 
common for SCSI.  Also, the FAQ you point to is referring to SATA, not SCSI.

None of this really matters though.  Software RAID doesn't care what 
interface or controller your drives are connected to.  As long as Linux 
can find the block devices, you can install software RAID.

Unfortunately, I don't know anything about Ubuntu server's RAID 
installation to suggest why it might have failed.  One option is to 
simply install to a single drive and then mirror it once the system is 
up and running.

Fred Hensley wrote:
> Thanks Stuart for the suggestion.. I too was scratching my head when
> considering the concept of a non-software-raid capable system, but RAID
> 1 was DOA after installation, and I later found the following reference
> at http://www.wikifaq.com/Dell_PowerEdge_400SC_FAQs
> 
> ---------------- begin FAQ Quote --------------
> Does the 400SC support SATA RAID?
> 
> No Sadly. Officially, the word from Dell is "no", and further
> investigation reveals that the 400SC uses the ICH5 (82801EB)
> southbridge, as shown in this picture. The Intel data sheet confirms
> that RAID support is only available on the ICH5R (82801ER) chipsets.
> Additionally, the BIOS only shows the option to enable/disable SATA, no
> RAID configuration. Also, Intel's Application Accelerator is not
> supported by the 400SC's chipset. It has become a RAID only utility.
> 
> ----------------end FAQ Quote -------------------------
> 
> Frankly, I was simply looking for an inexpensive work around, but
> perhaps that just isn't possible.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -Fred-
> fred at hensleyhome.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 10:12 -0600, Stuart Johnston wrote:
>> Fred Hensley wrote:
>>> Hey Gang,
>>>
>>> Must be that time of the year again for a raid conversation, eh?   :)
>>>
>>> I have inherited a 5-year old Dell server (400SC) which is a pentium 4,
>>> 2.4Ghz, 4gb memory, and recently installed 2x160GB seagate scsi hard
>>> drives. 
>>>
>>> While loading Ubuntu server 7.10, I attempted to setup software raid 1
>>> configuration for these drives (which I do regularly), but learned after
>>> the fact that this particular server doesn't support software raid...
>> Huh?  How does a server not support software raid?  Isn't the point of 
>> software raid that is isn't dependent on the hardware?
>>
>>> Okey-dokey, back to the drawing board...
>>>
>>> Can someone suggest a decent, inexpensive pci hardware raid controller
>>> card for mirroring these two scsi hard drives under a raid 1
>>> configuration using ubuntu?  Oh, and one that is hopefully pretty simple
>>> to install/configure too.
>> For SCSI RAID, I like the LSI MegaRAID controllers.  When model you need 
>> will depend on which type of SCSI interface your drives are and what 
>> type of PCI slots you have available.  They are not exactly cheap, though.
>>
>> You might get a better deal on one of the Dell branded versions. 
>> http://linux.dell.com/storage.shtml#megaraid_scsi
>