Good RAID for New Desktop Machine?
 

I need to get a new desktop machine, and I'm planning on getting a card
to support RAID mirroring in case of a disk crash. My wife has a 6 month
old Dell that she bought with some brand of card & 2 drives, but Dell
didn't install the card. We discovered that the first thing the card
wants to do is reformat your primary drive, which is absurd. We sent it
back and got a card from Promise. It took a few tech support calls to
get it installed & working properly. Even now, it wants to go to the
setup menu every time you boot.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good RAID card? I'd like to get
one that is reliable, and won't trash the primary (or remaining good)
drive if something crashes. I've read too many horror stories of RAID
systems that do stuff like reformatting the good drive when a bad drive
is replaced & other such nonsense.

I'll be using this with XP Pro, so Vista isn't an issue.

Thanks!

Doug White

Good RAID for New Desktop Machine?
 

Doug White:

I need to get a new desktop machine, and I'm planning on getting a card
to support RAID mirroring in case of a disk crash. My wife has a 6 month
old Dell that she bought with some brand of card & 2 drives, but Dell
didn't install the card. We discovered that the first thing the card
wants to do is reformat your primary drive, which is absurd. We sent it
back and got a card from Promise. It took a few tech support calls to
get it installed & working properly. Even now, it wants to go to the
setup menu every time you boot.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good RAID card? I'd like to get
one that is reliable, and won't trash the primary (or remaining good)
drive if something crashes. I've read too many horror stories of RAID
systems that do stuff like reformatting the good drive when a bad drive
is replaced & other such nonsense.

I'll be using this with XP Pro, so Vista isn't an issue.

For a desktop/home machine you could also consider using the built in
software RAID capabilities of XP. You can definitely build a RAID
starting from an existing disk with data on it and there won't be any
noticable difference in performance.

--

Joerg Lenneis

email:

Good RAID for New Desktop Machine?
 

Doug White wrote:
I need to get a new desktop machine, and I'm planning on getting a card
to support RAID mirroring in case of a disk crash. My wife has a 6 month
old Dell that she bought with some brand of card & 2 drives, but Dell
didn't install the card. We discovered that the first thing the card
wants to do is reformat your primary drive, which is absurd. We sent it
back and got a card from Promise. It took a few tech support calls to
get it installed & working properly. Even now, it wants to go to the
setup menu every time you boot.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good RAID card? I'd like to get
one that is reliable, and won't trash the primary (or remaining good)
drive if something crashes. I've read too many horror stories of RAID
systems that do stuff like reformatting the good drive when a bad drive
is replaced & other such nonsense.

I'll be using this with XP Pro, so Vista isn't an issue.

Thanks!

Doug White

With RAID-1 (mirroring) you still should do regular backups. RAID-1
only protects against failure of a HD, and supplies no protection
against failures of any other piece of hardware, or glitches due to
software or environment or fumble-fingers. IMHO, since the HD is one
of the most reliable pieces of a PC, RAID-1 has very little value
for a home.
--
Cheers, Bob

Good RAID for New Desktop Machine?
 

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Doug White wrote:
I need to get a new desktop machine, and I'm planning on getting a card
to support RAID mirroring in case of a disk crash. My wife has a 6 month
old Dell that she bought with some brand of card & 2 drives, but Dell
didn't install the card. We discovered that the first thing the card
wants to do is reformat your primary drive, which is absurd. We sent it
back and got a card from Promise. It took a few tech support calls to
get it installed & working properly. Even now, it wants to go to the
setup menu every time you boot.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good RAID card? I'd like to get
one that is reliable, and won't trash the primary (or remaining good)
drive if something crashes. I've read too many horror stories of RAID
systems that do stuff like reformatting the good drive when a bad drive
is replaced & other such nonsense.

I'll be using this with XP Pro, so Vista isn't an issue.

Thanks!

Doug White

Stay away from Adaptec. 3ware has a good reputation, but
the cards are not cheap. Also Linux software RAID is very
reliable, but not applicable in your case.

Arno

Good RAID for New Desktop Machine?
 

With RAID-1 (mirroring) you still should do regular backups. RAID-1
only protects against failure of a HD, and supplies no protection
against failures of any other piece of hardware, or glitches due to
software or environment or fumble-fingers.

For me, most of the on-mobo RAIDs are notorious for such glitches, which
sometimes kill all disks.

So, probably they actually decrease reliability and not increase it.

Backups are the way to go.

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation

http://www.storagecraft.com

Good RAID for New Desktop Machine?
 

In comp.arch.storage Arno Wagner wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Doug White wrote:
I need to get a new desktop machine, and I'm planning on getting a card
to support RAID mirroring in case of a disk crash. My wife has a 6 month
old Dell that she bought with some brand of card & 2 drives, but Dell
didn't install the card. We discovered that the first thing the card
wants to do is reformat your primary drive, which is absurd. We sent it
back and got a card from Promise. It took a few tech support calls to
get it installed & working properly. Even now, it wants to go to the
setup menu every time you boot.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good RAID card? I'd like to get
one that is reliable, and won't trash the primary (or remaining good)
drive if something crashes. I've read too many horror stories of RAID
systems that do stuff like reformatting the good drive when a bad drive
is replaced & other such nonsense.

I'll be using this with XP Pro, so Vista isn't an issue.

Thanks!

Doug White

Stay away from Adaptec. 3ware has a good reputation, but

can you name a single problem with an adaptec 2420SA?

Good RAID for New Desktop Machine?
 

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Cydrome Leader wrote:
In comp.arch.storage Arno Wagner wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Doug White wrote:
I need to get a new desktop machine, and I'm planning on getting a card
to support RAID mirroring in case of a disk crash. My wife has a 6 month
old Dell that she bought with some brand of card & 2 drives, but Dell
didn't install the card. We discovered that the first thing the card
wants to do is reformat your primary drive, which is absurd. We sent it
back and got a card from Promise. It took a few tech support calls to
get it installed & working properly. Even now, it wants to go to the
setup menu every time you boot.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good RAID card? I'd like to get
one that is reliable, and won't trash the primary (or remaining good)
drive if something crashes. I've read too many horror stories of RAID
systems that do stuff like reformatting the good drive when a bad drive
is replaced & other such nonsense.

I'll be using this with XP Pro, so Vista isn't an issue.

Thanks!

Doug White

Stay away from Adaptec. 3ware has a good reputation, but

can you name a single problem with an adaptec 2420SA?

I can name you a lot with the 2410SA. Non-functional
commandline-interface that does not allow any automatisation.
Keeps dropping drives. Takes forever to resync. No SMART support
despite claims to the contrary. Incompetent technical support.

Expensive trash.

Arno

Good RAID for New Desktop Machine?
 

In comp.arch.storage Arno Wagner wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Cydrome Leader wrote:
In comp.arch.storage Arno Wagner wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Doug White wrote:
I need to get a new desktop machine, and I'm planning on getting a card
to support RAID mirroring in case of a disk crash. My wife has a 6 month
old Dell that she bought with some brand of card & 2 drives, but Dell
didn't install the card. We discovered that the first thing the card
wants to do is reformat your primary drive, which is absurd. We sent it
back and got a card from Promise. It took a few tech support calls to
get it installed & working properly. Even now, it wants to go to the
setup menu every time you boot.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good RAID card? I'd like to get
one that is reliable, and won't trash the primary (or remaining good)
drive if something crashes. I've read too many horror stories of RAID
systems that do stuff like reformatting the good drive when a bad drive
is replaced & other such nonsense.

I'll be using this with XP Pro, so Vista isn't an issue.

Thanks!

Doug White

Stay away from Adaptec. 3ware has a good reputation, but

can you name a single problem with an adaptec 2420SA?

I can name you a lot with the 2410SA. Non-functional
commandline-interface that does not allow any automatisation.
Keeps dropping drives. Takes forever to resync. No SMART support
despite claims to the contrary. Incompetent technical support.

Expensive trash.

Arno

never had a drive drop or resync problems, and i've intentionally broken
arrays by yanking out the sata cables on a live system.

what firmware versions are you running?

Good RAID for New Desktop Machine?
 

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Cydrome Leader wrote:
In comp.arch.storage Arno Wagner wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Cydrome Leader wrote:
In comp.arch.storage Arno Wagner wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Doug White wrote:
I need to get a new desktop machine, and I'm planning on getting a card
to support RAID mirroring in case of a disk crash. My wife has a 6 month
old Dell that she bought with some brand of card & 2 drives, but Dell
didn't install the card. We discovered that the first thing the card
wants to do is reformat your primary drive, which is absurd. We sent it
back and got a card from Promise. It took a few tech support calls to
get it installed & working properly. Even now, it wants to go to the
setup menu every time you boot.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good RAID card? I'd like to get
one that is reliable, and won't trash the primary (or remaining good)
drive if something crashes. I've read too many horror stories of RAID
systems that do stuff like reformatting the good drive when a bad drive
is replaced & other such nonsense.

I'll be using this with XP Pro, so Vista isn't an issue.

Thanks!

Doug White

Stay away from Adaptec. 3ware has a good reputation, but

can you name a single problem with an adaptec 2420SA?

I can name you a lot with the 2410SA. Non-functional
commandline-interface that does not allow any automatisation.
Keeps dropping drives. Takes forever to resync. No SMART support
despite claims to the contrary. Incompetent technical support.

Expensive trash.

Arno

never had a drive drop or resync problems, and i've intentionally broken
arrays by yanking out the sata cables on a live system.

what firmware versions are you running?

As this thing was unusable and I had to get the storage running,
it has been disposed of by now, I expect. I bought it 4 years
ago.

Arno

Good RAID for New Desktop Machine?
 

"Arno ****Up" wrote in message ...
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Cydrome Leader wrote:

I can name you a lot with the 2410SA. Non-functional
commandline-interface that does not allow any automatisation.
Keeps dropping drives. Takes forever to resync. No SMART support
despite claims to the contrary. Incompetent technical support.

Expensive trash.

never had a drive drop or resync problems, and i've intentionally broken
arrays by yanking out the sata cables on a live system.

what firmware versions are you running?

As this thing was unusable and I had to get the storage running,
it has been disposed of by now, I expect. I bought it 4 years
ago.

So you have no relevant experience, as usual.