[techtalk] FastTrak100 rant

[JamesA.Sutherland]

On Thu, 26 Apr 2001 09:00:48 -0700, you wrote:

>As the subject implies, this isn't so much a question as a general
>frustration rant.
>
>****BEGIN RANT****
>ARG!
>
>Promise claims to have all this great linux support for their stuff.  But
>I've got a FastTrak100 ide RAID card that might as well be a paperweight for
>my RH7.1 (yeah, I know it's broken ;that's a seperate issue).  More
>specifically, they won't release the source and only have compiled modules
>for 2.2 (I've tried; they just don't work in 2.4).
>
>ARG!
>
>Well, software RAID it is then.  

Software RAID is all the FastTrak does in the first place - the only
useful bit is that (unlike Linux's software RAID) their BIOS extension
will allow you to boot from a RAID volume directly.

If you look very carefully at how that system works, in fact you'll
find it's exactly the same chip they use on their "non-RAID" IDE
adapters: there's a small hardware difference (an extra soldered link)
which enables this feature in their BIOS, and that's about it.

So unless you want to BOOT from a mirrored partition, don't worry:
just use plain old Linux software RAID. If you want your whole HDD
mirrored, booting from a floppy will give you this ability too.

>So glad they put the RAID options at
>install time; makes boot raids so much easier than in 5.x.
>****END RANT****

You'll also find Andre Hedrick (the "Linux-ATA guy") is ... less than
friendly towards Promise. Lots of nastiness took place between them
over licensing terms, it seems.


James.