Hardware raid question

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  • LinuxRandal
    Veteran Member
    • Feb 2005
    • 4890
    • Independence, MO, USA.
    • bt3100
    #1

    Hardware raid question

    I am looking at the 3ware raid card, 8006-2lp. Now I have 0 experience with raid, so this is probably a really stupid question.............

    I am leaning on using Freenas on my NAS box, and am wondering do these cards have jumpers, or bios, or how do I set them, so they see the drive as one (mirrored, not striped)?

    Thanks all!
    She couldn't tell the difference between the escape pod, and the bathroom. We had to go back for her.........................Twice.
    Tags: None
    • SwingKing
      Established Member
      • Jul 2004
      • 131
      • Fort Worth, TX, USA.
      • BT3100
      #2
      I don't know about the 3ware card, but my experience with these type of controllers is that configuration is done at BIOS POST time. After the motherboard goes through its BIOS checks, the motherboard gives each card a chance to do it's own boot configuration. The card will display something like "Press F1 to configure RAID" or "No RAID volumes configured. Press F1 to continue or F3 to configure".

      -- Ken

        Comment

        • crokett
          The Full Monte
          • Jan 2003
          • 10627
          • Mebane, NC, USA.
          • Ryobi BT3000
          #3
          Swingking is correct. After the PC BIOS finishes POST, it will load each of the adapters. You will see a prompt for this one similar to the Ctrl+A for SCSI. If this adapter still uses dip switches and/or jumpers to configure things, you need to move on and find another that uses a SW config.

          I went with SW RAID instead of HW on my Linux server. Todays PCs are fast enough to keep up with it and in a pinch I can load the filesystem directly if I have to with no special RAID driver needed.
          David

          The chief cause of failure in this life is giving up what you want most for what you want at the moment.

            Comment

            • LinuxRandal
              Veteran Member
              • Feb 2005
              • 4890
              • Independence, MO, USA.
              • bt3100
              #4
              Cool, so like my old SCSI cards (or even the old onboard). It means if I want to use some old drives I have, I could play first, before deciding (getting tired of screwing and unscrewing cases together).

              Thanks!
              She couldn't tell the difference between the escape pod, and the bathroom. We had to go back for her.........................Twice.

                Comment

                • pelligrini
                  Veteran Member
                  • Apr 2007
                  • 4217
                  • Fort Worth, TX
                  • Craftsman 21829
                  #5
                  I'm not familiar with the 3ware cards either. The reviews on Newegg look pretty favorable at a glance.

                  My experience is with older SCSI cards and a 4 port Highpoint IDE card. My really old ones required a boot disk to do any configurations. Most any decent card today will have it's own BIOS program as swingking describes. Looks like this one will too.
                  Erik

                    Comment

                    • cgallery
                      Veteran Member
                      • Sep 2004
                      • 4503
                      • Milwaukee, WI
                      • BT3K
                      #6
                      Yep, the key combination for 3Ware cards is Ctrl-3. So when the BIOS extension is running (3Ware copyright, RAID enumeration, blah blah blah) you press Ctrl-3 to enter the card's built-in configuration utility.

                      My biggest gripe w/ 3Ware cards is that some of the 9500 series (I think) were locking the drives w/ a password, which can make diagnostics a PITA.

                      And I think some of their cards image REAL SLOWLY with Ghost.

                      But overall I'm a fan of the company. They relentlessly update drivers and they are very responsive to customer feedback.
                      Last edited by cgallery; 04-12-2009, 09:29 PM.

                        Comment

                        • Kristofor
                          Veteran Member
                          • Jul 2004
                          • 1331
                          • Twin Cities, MN
                          • Jet JTAS10 Cabinet Saw
                          #7
                          LR, do you already have the hardware that will be used for your NAS box?

                          If not (or if you haven't checked what you're using), a lot of mid-range and higher mobos in the last 6-8 years have come with raid on the board already. Sometimes as part of the southbridge itself or other times as an additional controller (Silicon Image, JMicron, etc.) for extra drives.

                          I generally don't use raid on my home computers (media server being the one exception and that's a proprietary flavor), but I'd feel better about using it for straight mirroring than for other flavors...

                          Keep in mind you'll still need to backup your data... A corrupted/overwritten/etc. file on a mirror set is no better than on a single drive...

                            Comment

                            • gerti
                              Veteran Member
                              • Dec 2003
                              • 2233
                              • Minnetonka, MN, USA.
                              • BT3100 "Frankensaw"
                              #8
                              Personally I think for many situations soft RAID is a better choice. No extra hardware or drivers, performance penalty is low, and it is easy to monitor the status remotely. Ubuntu let's you set up the RAID during installation. Just run through a few failure scenarios before you install anything else and write down the solutions so you are confortable with it when the need arises to replace a drive.

                              And as Kristofor says, you still need an off-site backup. A RAID will only protect you from a drive failing. It will not help in case of software or user error, hack, or (god forbid) fire, water, lightning or other physical damage.

                                Comment

                                • LinuxRandal
                                  Veteran Member
                                  • Feb 2005
                                  • 4890
                                  • Independence, MO, USA.
                                  • bt3100
                                  #9
                                  My NAS system, is based on the Intel Atom board (low power). My backup solution is a USB TB disk (also have a 500gb), as well as the old fashioned burn directories in smaller chunks to dvd. (ripped my music collection and don't want to go through that again).

                                  Other storage media, hasn't really kept up with hard drive size for backing up, so Redundantcy becomes a bigger positive. (on and offsite backups have suited me until now)
                                  She couldn't tell the difference between the escape pod, and the bathroom. We had to go back for her.........................Twice.

                                    Comment

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