# Affordable IDE RAID

## brain

Hey yo.

I was wondering what everyone out there uses for IDE RAID.

I'm building a low-end server for small-business use.   My primary concern is redundancy...speed is nice, but it won't  be utilized--so it's not absolutely necessary.

I've had some so-so experience with Promise FastTrak controllers.   They work but I was hoping there was a better supported card.  Seems like I have problems with the FastTrak cards and Linux.

What do y'all recommend?

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## arkane

As much as I stand up for the software impementations of striping and other things, I just have to shudder at the thought of trusting software RAID on a business server.  (I know you didn't say you were thinking about it, but I was just thinking about that as I read your post)

About the only card I've ever heard anyone use was the Promise one, but I'd love to see any other alternatives.  IDE RAID is something I'd love to learn more about on a *hardware* level.

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## ElCondor

I've installed some 3ware Escalade IDE-HW-RAID controllers, no problems so  far. hotplugable, and a nice web-interface  :Wink: 

* ElCondor pasa *

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## xzibit

dont bother with those cheap ide raid controllers, all it really is, is software raid. I would recommend the 3ware esclade cards but if you cant find one or cant afford it just use the linux software raid, you'll get the same performance if not better than using one of those promise ide raid cards.

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## rommel

3ware seems to be doing well....the performance should be better then promise adn highpoint and its easier to setup...adaptec uses a highpoint chipset adn is pretty bad under linux...if i were you i would get an ide controller that is supported and use LSR...i have set it up in gentoo and my root partition is on /dev/md0 and i get around 80mb/s on the read tranfer....this is better then any raid controller i have seen thus far...and the promise tx2 controller i am using was 19 bucks....if you want more then 2 drives try to get a controller channel for each for the best performance...unless you go scsi then it will not matter.

before you commit to a "raid controller" atleast look at the lsr raid articles that drobbins wrote and the ones he refers too as addition reading

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