[Techtalk] Re: ATA RAID with Promise FastTrack

[Jessica Smith]

Hi Scott,

At 18/02/03 03:33 AM, you wrote:

>Sorry, Promise ATA-RAID is _not_ hardware RAID. No matter how you install, 
>i.e.
>with Promise, Linux or BSD drivers it is still SW-RAID.

OK, I accept that.


> > Thanks to Scott too for your answer - not quite what I needed but I
> > appreciate you taking the time.
>
>You are very welcome. However, if you want to use Linux drivers... it _is_ 
>what
>you need.

Thanks for telling me what I need...  :-P

I may have to re-read your post, but I believe that you were describing how 
to install and configure software RAID, which isn't *quite* what I was 
asking for. I can manage the software RAID install OK, I just had trouble 
with the "hardware" RAID install.

Here's where I'm coming from - in the ATARAID HOWTO (at 
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/ATA-RAID-HOWTO/installing.html among other 
places) it says:

"Because Promise Driver is a SCSI emulation,
  it puts a lot of load on CPU(s). Read on if
  you want to enable true Linux native RAID
  and get rid of this Promise SCSI emulation."

If anyone can explain the difference between "Linux native RAID" for [an 
IDE RAID] controller and plain old software IDE RAID, that may help to 
educate me.  :-)

In any case, it seems to me that there is an advantage in running RAID that 
is supported through the BIOS (whether we call that "hardware RAID", 
"pseudo-hardware RAID", or "Bob" I don't much care).  ;-)

Maybe I'm wrong.


Any thoughts?

Jessica