# Promise FastTrak TX2 - HW or SW RAID?

## bwoo

I have a Promise FastTrak TX2 IDE/PATA RAID card. Can anyone tell me whether this is a hardware or a software RAID card?

I'm trying to install Gentoo 2005.0 (kernel 2.6) on an AMD64 machine, and I'd like to use this card to do the mirroring of my boot disks. I noticed that there is a module called pata_pdc2027x. If I do a modprobe on this - will it then recognize the RAID functions on this card? I've read somewhere that the 2.6 kernel no longer recognizes cards like the FastTrak TX2. I intend to use it on my home server.

Thanks in advance.

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## augury

looks like a 2-channel.  hardware sata raid is hard to find and tends to cost >$100 and so it would be advertised as a hardware raid FastTrak TX2.  not many boot loaders support raid, you can boot a raid1 but the mirroring doesnt start until the kernel does not that it matters really.  hardware raid may support this and raid0.  one way to find out for sure is to set the disk up in the bios and see how many devices you get in /dev.  modprobe raid1 for the raid.  then there is Promise SATA TX2/TX4 support in sata drivers (modprobe sata_promise) and promise drivers in ide/ata but i don't know which you'd use.  ive run software raid0 on on board Promise SATA TX2/TX4 and it did fine even when i switched the disks to the intel sata.

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## canal

 *bwoo wrote:*   

> I have a Promise FastTrak TX2 IDE/PATA RAID card. Can anyone tell me whether this is a hardware or a software RAID card?

 

Software RAID sold as hardware RAID (BIOS and Windows drivers are doing mirroring/sriping in reality). Use it as separate IDE channels and be happy (unless you really need dual-boot).

P.S. Great business model, don't you think: one resistor is sold for ~$30-$40 (single resistor is the only difference between "TX2" and "FastTrak TX2" - at least it was so few years ago, may be now they are using two)...

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## bwoo

 *augury wrote:*   

> looks like a 2-channel.  hardware sata raid is hard to find and tends to cost >$100 and so it would be advertised as a hardware raid FastTrak TX2.  not many boot loaders support raid, you can boot a raid1 but the mirroring doesnt start until the kernel does not that it matters really.  hardware raid may support this and raid0.  one way to find out for sure is to set the disk up in the bios and see how many devices you get in /dev.  modprobe raid1 for the raid.  then there is Promise SATA TX2/TX4 support in sata drivers (modprobe sata_promise) and promise drivers in ide/ata but i don't know which you'd use.  ive run software raid0 on on board Promise SATA TX2/TX4 and it did fine even when i switched the disks to the intel sata.

 

augury,

thank you for your reply. as i mentioned in my original post, i have ide/ata.

b

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## bwoo

So as a follow up, what's the point of pata_pdc2027x? Is it necessary? Or do I just use modprobe raid1?

Thanks

b

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## augury

youll need an ide driver. theres two of them -- that one and another. i dont know which one it is. try starting coldplug and see if it gets loaded.

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## augury

when  you say you want raid1 on the boot drive, do you mean the root filesystem?

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## bwoo

 *augury wrote:*   

> youll need an ide driver. theres two of them -- that one and another. i dont know which one it is. try starting coldplug and see if it gets loaded.

 

coldplug doesn't load either actually. i had to manually do a modprobe on pata_pdc2027x. the question i have is .. is it necessary, especially if it is being used as a "dumb" ide controller. also, i want to definitely do raid1 on the root filesystem, but also on my boot drive. i'd like the ability in the event that one drive fails, that it will boot off the other.

i've seen 2 howto's on how to do this. my main question is whether to load pata_pdc2027x or not.

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## augury

can you see the devices? ie "cfdisk /dev/hdb"

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## bwoo

With or without the driver, i can see /dev/hde, /dev/hdf, /dev/hdg and /dev/hdh (all 4 drives connected to it). I'm reading elsewhere that a "hardware raid1" set should come up as a scsi device .. i'm going to try it tonight and see if i create a raid1 pair, whether or not it will recognize a /dev/sdx device.

b

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## augury

you may be running on generic ide.  emerge lshw, modprobe the mod. and run "lshw -C storage | grep 'driver'.

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## bwoo

what is lshw, and what will the command do?

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## augury

you have to use the bios to do that or else it will be a software raid/

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## beandog

 *bwoo wrote:*   

> what is lshw, and what will the command do?

 

lshw == list hardware.  Great little tool, I wish every livecd had it.

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## augury

or do 

```
cat /proc/bus/pci/devices | grep 'pata_pdc2027x'
```

if you dont like lshw.

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## augury

the whole bios thing is so cheesie.  it doesnt do anything but make windows user feel like they got the real thing.

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