# Recomendations for a SATA Raid controller.

## Garbz

So it's been close to 2 years since I've had gentoo on my main system curtosy of my onboard Sillicon Image Sata raid controller not being recognised under gentoo.  But I need another hdd, and i'm out of connectors so I'll be buying a new controller.

I'm looking for a relatively inexpensive SATA RAID controller. I'll be using RAID 0 (dodgy i know) and I want 2-4 connectors on the card.  I don't need any fancy features like onboard cache, although NCQ would be a bonus if I could fit it in my price range. 

So the price range: cheap. as cheap as possible. Performance is seconday to price. If it's only 80% efficient it's good enough. Most importantly it needs to have native hardware RAID support under gentoo.  I'm begining to suffer withdrawal symptoms.

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## russryder

browse the sata controller cards on newegg.com 

they usually list if they are compliant with linux in the product description.  

You can get one for under 30 dollars w/ shipping just do some research before you buy one

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## Garbz

anyone here have any experience with a Highpoint RocketRAID 1520

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/rr1520.htm

It says it has redhat, caldera, turbo, suse, and freebsd support.  Any idea if gentoo will run on it?  Bearing in mind that i need it to recognise the HW RAID 0 array.

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## wuzzerd

 *Garbz wrote:*   

> So it's been close to 2 years since I've had gentoo on my main system curtosy of my onboard Sillicon Image Sata raid controller not being recognised under gentoo.

 

Have you built the sata_sis module into your kernel??

That works here.

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## markkuk

 *Garbz wrote:*   

> 
> 
> So the price range: cheap. as cheap as possible (...) Most importantly it needs to have native hardware RAID support under gentoo.

 Those features are mutually exclusive. There are no cheap true hardware RAID cards, all the cheap "RAID" cards are software-RAID just like the SiI on your motherboard. See the SATA RAID FAQ.

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## chickaroo

u can set up dmraid or the standard md drivers. i've tried my onboard sil_sata and i found the performance sucked compared to my mature nforce2 ide drivers when using software raid. but maybe that's cuz my hard drives weren't true sata (data - ide adapter)

but, yeah there isn't any cheap true hardware controllers.

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## pksings

I attempted to install on a RocketRAID and was un-successful. The driver is mandatory and would not compile.

I successfully installed on a 3ware 7000 and am running on it but since it doesn't provide a BIOS extension I cannot write a boot sector on it so it's booting  from a regular ATAPI drive.  I requested support but they won't support Gentoo.

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## Garbz

it's about time manufacturers pull their fingers out!

Looks like Gentoo will be restricted to server for about another year!

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## DeadPenguin

I just got a 3ware escalade 8006-2. Gentoo docs said 3ware 7000 and 8000 were supported.

Newegg.com says 8006 has true hardware raid and it's less than $150.

I am still waiting for my AMD 64 2005.0 disks so I have time to play with controller.

I have a million questions on setup, but will save them for a seperate thread.

I am hoping for /boot on sata I don't want to install PATA just for /boot.

Regards,

Blair

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## someguy

dont buy highpoint there chips are crap

go with the 3ware escalade series they are nice 

i put these in client machines at work first because we hear out of them alot less than other cards and our deploy is pretty big so

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## Keruskerfuerst

I have read a test in Tom´s Hardware Guide about raid controllers.

3Ware escalade and Areca were the best.

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## someguy

 *Keruskerfuerst wrote:*   

> I have read a test in Tom´s Hardware Guide about raid controllers.
> 
> 3Ware escalade and Areca were the best.

 

nice ..... 

i work with them all the time  :Wink:  sis raid is garbage  :Razz: 

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## Dieter@be

remember the topicstarter wants a cheap solution for raid0 ??

those areca (and in a lesser degree 3ware) cards are top notch for raid5 and raid6 arrays because these cards have fast processors onboard for parity calculations, which are a must for such arrays, but raid0 array's don't need that kind of processing, so these cards are waaayy overkill.

maybe take a look at an lsi megaraid 150-4, if they are still available (and not too expensive)

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## Garbz

Since starting this thread I've bought a highpoint rocketraid 150 controller. I still don't have gentoo on it though because I didn't have the spare hdd space to migrate to a different controller but this will happen shortly.

So far though I have managed to get the the Highpoint controller working in gentoo, and it does have opensource drivers from highpoint, although I compiled with RAID=0 option. The module works very well

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