Re: Experience with HP Smart Array P400 and SATA drives?

On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 12:13 PM, Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Dec 2008, Matthew Wakeling wrote:
>
>> I'd be interested in recommendations for RAID cards for small SATA
>> systems. It's not anything to do with Postgres - I'm just intending to set
>> up a little four-drive array for my home computer, with cheap 1TB SATA
>> drives.
>
> Then why are you thinking of RAID cards?  On a Linux only host, you might as
> well just get a standard cheap multi-port SATA card that's compatible with
> the OS, plug the four drives in, and run software RAID.  Anything else you
> put in the middle is going to add complications in terms of things like
> getting SMART error data from the drives, and the SW RAID will probably be
> faster too.

Note that you could combine the two and use a caching controller in
jbod mode and do the raid in linux kernel sw mode.  Just a thought.
Not sure about the smart stuff though.

>> What PCI-Express or motherboard built-in SATA RAID controllers for about
>> four drives are there out there that are good, and well supported by Linux?
>> What level of support is there for monitoring and reporting of RAID status?
>
> 3ware 9650SE-4LPML is what I'd buy today if I wanted hardware SATA RAID.
> When I made a similar decision some time ago, I bought an Areca 1210
> instead, but two things have changed since then.  One, I've become
> increasingly unsatisfied with the limitations of the closed-source
> controller management tool Areca supplies.

Note that Areca's newest controllers, the 1680 series, have a separate
ethernet port with snmp traps so you don't have to use any special
closed source software to monitor them.  Just FYI for anyone
considering them.