Port multiplier recommendation
 

Does anyone work with SATA port mulitplier? I need to create raid software using mdadm. Is there any good quality port mulitplier out there?

I begin to look on the web and found this tower, not sure about its quality. I also look for a tower that support more disks.

http://www.cooldrives.com/mac-port-m...sata-case.html

Personally I'm fond of 3ware controller for Linux, although they specialize in Hardware RAID controllers, rather than just plain old SATA controllers. http://www.3ware.com/products/index.asp

for other SATA drive cage options check out http://www.scsi4me.com/sata-serial-ata.html

Or if you are looking for a nice case already built with LOTS of drive bays check out Chenbro
http://usa.chenbro.com/corporatesite...at.php?pos=16# No their cases are not cheap, but they are a lot nicer than trying to cram a bunch of misc drive cages into a case that wasn't designed to hold them..

Those Chenbro cases and a couple 3Ware cards make for a pretty nice Rackmount Server.

Hi,

By connecting a 4x1 eSATA/USB RAID hardware port multiplier (HPM) to your Linux box, you don't need to worry about setting up mdadm. All the raid setting is done on the integrated HPM. RAID mode selection is set via a rotary switch and setup is done using a RAID setup button.

This HPM has 4 SATA ports to connect 4 SATA drives. Once configured as a raid volume, the Linux box will only see a single RAID volume. You can actually connect multiple HPMs on internal SATA ports on a motherboard. That means one 4 drives connected to the HPM per internal SATA port on a mobo.

Hardware Port Multiplier for Linux
 

Consider using a hardware port multiplier solution instead of the software raid implementation of SATA controllers and port multipliers using Silicon Image chips. A 4x1 eSATA/USB Hardware Port Multiplier (HPM) that is OS independent and will work with any eSATA port is an alternative solution. The 4-port SATA integrated HPM with an Oxford OXUFS936QSE chipset uses hardware raid technology.

RAID mode selection is done using a rotary switch and setup is
completed by pressing a raid setting button. Once configured all is needed is to connect the HPM to your system via USB 2.0 or eSATA and detect, partition & mount the RAID volume.

RAID mode supported are FAST2 (2 drive RAID 0 Striping),, SAFE2 (RAID1 Mirroring), SAFE FAST (RAID 1+0 Mirrored Stripped), BIG 2 (2 drives Concatenation), FAST4 (4 drive RAID 0 Striping), BIG 4(4 drives Concatenation), RAID 1+0, RAID 5 over 4 drives, or RAID 5+S.

Connecting the HPM to onboard SATA ports on the motherboard is possible by using 2 eSATA ports PCI slot mounting bracket with two eSATA connectors to convert internal Serial ATA to
eSATA.

2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB & 8TB Turnkey RAID solutions utilizing the 4x1 eSATA/USB Hardware Port Multiplier (HPM) are available at
https://www.theraidbox.com

The way software RAID works using SI controllers and port multipliers (PM) is that, you use mdadm to see and configure as a raid volume all 5 drives connected to the PM. If the PM is connected to non-PM aware controller card (legacy) it will only detect one drive out of the 5.

But using a Hardware Port Multiplier which uses an integrated hardware controller, the raid setup is done on the HPM itself. So once you connect it to a SATA port, it will be seen as a single RAID volume.