SATA controllers

[Chan Chung Hang Christopher]

Tom H wrote:
>>>> I'm speccing a new machine and as part of it I'd like to have a
>>>> linux-controlled 4-disk RAID 6 array using SATA 3 Gbps disks (aka STA 2).
> 
>>>> Can anybody point me to lists and/or reviews of recommended 4-port
>>>> controller cards please?
> 
>>> http://www.tomshardware.com/
> 
>>> The CentOS, Debian, and Red Hat lists.
> 
>> /me rotfl. I definitely do not remember ever reading about or discussing
>> reviews of sata controllers on the Centos list.
> 
> I have; in interminable threads about RAID controllers and SASvSATAvSCSI.
> 

Reviews? Discussions/arguments about raid controllers and type of 
interconnects yes but reviews? Just nitpicking :-P


>>> If you are looking for software (mdadm) RAID, make sure that you do
>>> not buy a FakeRAID card.
> 
>> It would be a bit hard to find a 4 port non-raid sata controller. After
>> all, they get to charge a premium for a slightly modified bios. At least
>> here in Hong Kong anyway.
> 
> Probably true. I have never considered buying such a card.

Not a software raid guy eh? Well, I'd rather do hardware raid + bbu 
cache for anything that is not raid1+0 or raid1 or raidz 
(OpenSolaris/Solaris) too. It would be nice to see a PCIe 8-port SATA 
controller that also support PMP. Might make for a nice cheap storage 
solution given the right motherboard and interface. Right now, I think I 
will have to settle for Supermicro's LSI based non-raid dual SGPIO port 
SAS controllers and its 6 SGPIO port backplane.


> 
> I made that point because Karmic will try quite aggressively dmraid,
> as we have seen in a previous thread.
> 

Oh, missed that thread. Hmm, 
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto has a rather specious 
reason for 'promoting' dmraid. Does dmraid support barriers? If not, 
Karmic is then doing an installation that is by nature not data safe. 
Nice, let's do an installation that will potentially cost a new user 
his/her data or might be rendered useless in the event of a crash/power 
failure instead of promoting other choices like WUBI, using a VM or 
*gasp* buying a hard disk.