Fc6 Sata Raid

[martin27]

Does anybody have any experience with FC6 and SATA RAID? I'm putting together a system and I'm trying to figure out whether or not using SATA as opposed to PATA will give me any trouble with RAID 1. My decision will be basically to decide between 2 320 gb SATA drives or 2 320 gb PATA drives. My impression is that SATA is faster and most of the new technology is going into SATA, however, from what I've read here there are problems with SATA and Fedora. I've never had any problems with PATA RAID in the past, so I feel more comfortable with that at this point.

Thanks.

[DMD]

I have a SATA drive no problems in Fc6

[landoncz]

Definitely get SATA, will be faster than PATA.... just make sure you get a RAID controller that has Linux support. I've built several servers with the Nvidia onboard RAID controller using SATA drives and haven't had any problems...

[LaKing]

I have a server here now with 12 sata drives and a scsi drive.
I have trouble with the 4 drive array, but that can be due to older hardware or drive failure.
There is no problem in sata technology, but in eventual cases there can be problems. pata as well.

dont fear sata.

[techmum]

You are unlikely to have any problems with the SATA hard disks themselves.

However, it is quite possible you will have some glitches with some of the SATA RAID controller chipsets used on recent motherboards.

For example, the ATI SB600 SATA RAID controller required a work-around. For example>

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/...ighlight=sb600

More recently I have been having lots of problems with the NVIDIA nForce4 RAID controller that I am still trying to resolve.

So my suggestion - before you make a final decision - check what SATA RAID controller is used on the motherboard and then check Google and the FedoraForum to determine if there are any issues with Linux and / or FC6.

[stevea]

The more recent intel chipsets do not have a PATA interface ! So yes, it;s time to get ready for a PATA/IDE free world.
One losing feature of PATA is that the bus supports multiple drives - so there is a bandwidth issue to simultaneous use.

My latest mobo (Asus P5B Dlx) only has a single vestigile PATA bus, and I'm not using it (SATA CD/DVD too). I'm running a Raid0 config between a pair of Seagate 320GB SATAs. No problems. I did some bandwidth tests and the Linux SW raid had more consistent performance, very similar typical speed, than the BIOS raid; the CPU usage is microscopic either way. Unless you are running a diskfarm I suggest you ignore the advice about raid controllers - use the Linux software raid. Choose a MOBO/Bios/SATA chipset that supports AHCI (this enables NCQ drive features).

The Several Intel SATA interfaces I've used for the past 3 years have been troublefree. The new JMicron SATA controller on my Asus bd does have driver support, but it's pretty green.

FWIW Seagate just bumped their warrantee period to 5 years on most drives. I think that tells a story.

[JonC]

Having no end of grief with mine. I think its the mobo causing the trouble (Asus A8V-X, Via 8251 controller) but drives running at 3Gbps fall over after a while and need to be remounted. Though oddly there's still a problem using a pci-express sata card...

[techmum]

For future readers - some clarifications of a comment by stevea re motherboard RAID vs Linux software RAID>

* No matter whether you use the motherboard RAID or create a RAID set via Linux, your SATA drives are still controlled by the motherboard RAID chipset. As far as the controller chipset is concerned, you have turned off the RAID option. However, any driver issues with the RAID controller chipset are still relevant as you still need to use that chipset to control any SATA drives.

* The suggestion regarding choosing a motherboard that supports AHCI is spot on.

[martin27]

OK, so I went out and got an MB that has worked well for me with a single SATA drive, but no RAID. It has this chipset:

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/ch...series/k8m800/

I install FC 6 with raid1, reboot, and it immediately comes up and says the RAID drives are out of sync. Not a good sign. I'll see if it resyncs and then has no more problems. I really don't want to mess with it, though, because the mb was very inexpensive. I think I'm going to look for a new MB with the AHCI suggestion.

[martin27]

It seemed to resync all right. When I rebooted, it didn't want to resync. Maybe it was just an install issue. I'm going to update all the packages and see if it gives me any problems before installing it on our network.

[mislek]

We are trying to install FC6 on a ASRock AliveNF6G-DVI motherboard. We installed it fine, but we had to disable the onboard RAID during install. After the install we were able to enable it. The system is fine, but we are trying to build a RAID 5 Array. Any recommendation on weather we should use the on-board RAID controller vs the FC6 Software RAID?

We would appreciate feedback as well as a location where we can get the nVidia RAID Driver for FC6?

[martin27]

The standard claim is that Linux software RAID is superior to hardware RAID. There are claims that a lot of hardware manufacturers merely use Linux RAID code in their controllers, so you're just getting a watered down version of full Linux software RAID.

I'm not really familiar with RAID 5. Linux software RAID 1, mirrored RAID, has worked without problems for me on multiple machines.

Have you tried a RAID 5 array using Linux software RAID?

[Jak]

I have also used Raid 1 with Sata drives successfully: FC6 on x86_64. Well, as far as I can tell they are working fine.
My motherboard: Asus M2NPV-VM (has raid 1 on board)