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</head><BODY ><div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;">Chris,</SPAN></div>
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<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;">I must have missed the discussion here about it. </SPAN></div>
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<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;">I have checked the card I have and I am pretty sure its a hardware raid. I have used many raid cards and they all require drivers, for windows, novell and nix. Either the driver is built in with the os, or I have always had to load the drivers. Same with the good old SCSI stuff I used in days past.</SPAN></div>
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<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;">I would agree that a softraid would not offer much improvement, however I have used them very successfully in places where I simply needed to ad a sata port. </SPAN></div>
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<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;">Also, the bx install forces a raid 1, which also useless. (imho)</SPAN></div>
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<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;">Looking at the cent os forums, there seems to be an issue with cent os and this card. Will have to see what I find. </SPAN></div>
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<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;">Also, LSI bought or merged with 3ware. I have ton's of 3ware cards, and they are one of the best I have used.</SPAN></div>
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<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;">Thanks..</SPAN></div>
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<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;">t</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;"><br /><br /></span></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> Tony C. Loosle wrote:</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:maroon;">>> i will check that one out.</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:maroon;">>></SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:maroon;">>> The LSI Megaraid is natively supported by Cent OS5, and I can get</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:maroon;">>> to the screen to select the driver, but it never finds the array?</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:maroon;">>></SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">></SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> This has been discussed in some detail previously on this list.</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> The LSI Megaraid is one of a family known as "fakeraid". ie: it's</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> not a true hardware RAID, and relies upon software (drivers) to</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> operate.</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">></SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> In the opinion of many, fakeraid is to be avoided, since it offers</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> questionable benefit as to reliability, and debatable benefit when</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> it comes to performance.</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">></SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> As Xin has noted, often times the Linux software RAID will perform</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> just as well in most situations, if not better.</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">></SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> If it were me, I would never trust a production system with a</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> "fakeraid" controller enabled. I'd sooner run the controller as a</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> standard drive controller (ie: turn off the RAID) and let the Linux</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> RAID do its thing. There are a lot of reasons for that... many of</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> them from personal experience!</SPAN></div>
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