RAID questions, advice badly needed, SUSE 9.0
 

Hello,

I have the Promise SX4000 that I am doing a IDE RAID 5 on and for the OS I was going to use the Promise TX2000 but I am giving up on that solution and needing suggestions to replace that card.

I had planned to install 9.2 on this machine but that is not an option thanks to Promise and they are only supporting up to 2.4.21-99. Luckily I have a 9.0 CD set with that kernel build on it.
I have installed 9.0 onto only the TX2000 card with RAID 1 twice now and when the second card is added to the system things are not pretty. I have the proper driver but the module is not loading correctly when I look under YAST2 controller.

I would like to pickup another RAID 1 card and try another brand so I can get rid of the promise BIOS conflicts, but I am not sure what else is compatible and has drivers I can use.

So far I have been unable to find a list of compatible IDE RAID cards for SUSE 9.0, im sure it exists of if someone could point me in the direction that would be wonderful.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thank you very much!

Robert

I don't think that Promise is the problem despite the fact that they are not the most Linux friendly buisness. The issue more likely is in the 2.6 kernel. With the 2.6 kernel hardware RAID is no longer supported (from what I've read), you are only allowed to use software RAID, so as long as SuSE 9.2 can see your Hard Drives you should be able to install it you will just have to set up a software RAID through SuSE. This shouldn't be a problem if you are only running SuSE, if you want to dual boot you will have to have another HDD/RAID configuration for the other OS.

clarification - installing 9.0 kernel 2.4.21-99
 

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate the help!

I am being required to install the older kernel 2.4.21-99 so that I can have the Promise drivers for the SX4000 card. I would love to install 9.1 or 9.2 but support is not available for RAID cards yet in the 2.6.... Hopefully someday soon.

I am needing to have a raid 1 for the OS partitions and then leave the RAID 5 just for storage.


How does SUSE handle a software raid. I am afraid that if something goes wrong with one of the two OS drives I will not be able to recover from it especially if I can not get back into that exact version of suse. I can build up other boxes, but it wouldn't be the same hardware? I hope that makes sense.


On a side note: I spoke with Promise Tech Support earlier today and asked about the support for the 2.6 kernel. The teck said they are currently working on getting their cards working in Red Hat under the new kernel and then others will follow. I did let him know I didn't really believe him because I have been reading posts that this has been an issue from back in 2003 but he was very confident that he personally had been doing testing in the mornings and then on the phone each afternoon.
Guess we all can see what will happen.

Sounds way complex. Here's my .02
You can put your /home on a software RAID and just put the OS on a single drive. If you ever need to restore the system your settings and data will all be preserved. You will also avoid any troubles that you would encounter if your RAID card ever dies. If you depend on hardware that may not be replaceable in the future you could find yourself SOL.

And my $0.02 worth. Sell/return the promise card, it sucks. Surf over to www.3ware.com and get a new/better card.

The promise cards are not hardware controllers, they are most ran by software (your CPU cycles).

The drivers and linux support in general simply sucks.

3ware on the other hand is geared for linux.

Their drivers/management software is geared for linux and in top notch.

It is truly a hardware controller.

And is overall a much nicer card than anything promise offers.

I had a promise SuperTrak SX6000 Pro for just about two days before i sent it back and got a 3ware 7506-8. There is absolutely no comparison between these cards in a linux environment.