Hello all! a noobish question on SCSI

SaneitySaneity
edited October 2006 in Hardware
First post here :) Looks like a really great forum

I've sortof gotten interested in SCSI stuff and i've invested in a small scsi setup. Eventually I might get a workstation level motherboard with 64 bit pcix slots but for now i'm trying out 32 bit pci 2.0.

So basically, a couple questions for any gurus that might see this...
I just got my new raid card today. It's an HP Netraid 2M with 128 megs of cache. I have heard it's another version of LSI megaraid 1600 and so I could change the firmware to LSI (which would be fantastic since I can't find XP drivers for it on the HP site). Could anyone confirm this ? Basically I want to connect this to my Adaptec 39160 dual channel controller and have them run my twin 18 gig Seagate Cheetah 15k.3 drives in Raid 0. My main question is: (and I can't find this after searching on the web) in which fashion do I connect my controller to the raid card and how do I connect my drives to the raid card or do I do something else entirely ?
Sorry if this is reported somewhere obvious but I can't find anything helpful and I thought maybe someone here would be generous enough to help me with the problem of setting up raid cable configuration. Once I have the cables correctly setup, i'll figure the rest out on my own.
Sorry if i've been overly long and thanks in advance.

Luke

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    You can't connect the RAID card to the controller. That SCSI controller is non-raid.

    honestly, you will get stellar performance out of that if you do a software RAID in windows. As long as those aren't your boot drives (which they shouldn't be - your OS should NEVER reside on a raid 0 volume), you can stripe them right in windows and get excellent raid 0 performance without even needing that netraid controller.

    You only need a hardware raid controller when you want to put the OS on the raid.

    I hope you're using RAID 0 for scratch space and that you won't store anything important on that..... :eek3:

    Basically you hook the drives up to the raid controller. The 39160 is a non-raid controller and so won't do anything for you at this point.
  • ArmoArmo Mr. Nice Guy Is Dead,Only Aqua Remains Member
    edited October 2006
    The server 2k3 drivers should work on XP, you might have to force them to install on XP, but they should work. We do somthing similar to a server we use at work, since we cant have a server OS in our room due to security reasons, we use XP in our server, along with NC3131 dual load balancing nic cards and a few Compaq Si 5300 raid controllers, all are running off of the Server 2K3 drivers on a desktop workstation.

    http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=62491&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=51930&swLang=13&taskId=135&swEnvOID=1005
  • SaneitySaneity
    edited October 2006
    Really appreciate the comments, was starting to pull at my hair over this.

    Here I thought all along that I need both a SCSI controller + raid controller - was sure i'd heard that from multiple sources. I've been searching for hours on the web and it was slowly dawning on me from bits and pieces and NEVER a mention of connecting raid to reg scsi adapter, to be honest.

    Yes, I want bootable Raid 0 and no I don't care if it crashes, speed is my only consideration. Do raid 0 arrays often crash or something ? Constantly hear warnings about their volatile nature, is it that bad?

    XP seems to detect the 2M but i'm not sure if it's properly installed. Would I be better off upgrading the firmware for speed/stability or any other good reason. Or, would I be best to change firmware to an LSI megaraid 1600 enterprise like I was talking about before ?

    Once again, thankyou very much for your time.
  • SaneitySaneity
    edited October 2006
    Lol..
    is that old guy trying to stand his ground in the face of some life withering bad breath in your sig there... haha
  • SaneitySaneity
    edited October 2006
    Armo wrote:
    The server 2k3 drivers should work on XP, you might have to force them to install on XP, but they should work. We do somthing similar to a server we use at work, since we cant have a server OS in our room due to security reasons, we use XP in our server, along with NC3131 dual load balancing nic cards and a few Compaq Si 5300 raid controllers, all are running off of the Server 2K3 drivers on a desktop workstation.

    http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=62491&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=51930&swLang=13&taskId=135&swEnvOID=1005

    Interesting to note that Windows server 2003 drivers might work in XP, good to know, thanks.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Read this thread for some opinions on RAID 0 "from the field"

    Short answer: Yes, it's extremely volatile, and I personally guarantee that it will fail at some point, causing you to lose everything.
  • SaneitySaneity
    edited October 2006
    Well... there seems to be two camps in regards to raid 0, the yay sayers and nay sayers, I have to wonder at the bigger picture.

    This will be my first ever raid of any kind and first time running scsi. It's cost me a little cash but I got everything off Trademe (ebay in NZ) so it was cheap. The two drive raid 0 I had planned is just for my desktop, home, single user setup.

    To be honest i'm playing with scsi and raid more for fun/experimentation. If I learn about it and enjoy that then whatever. I appreciate that a large amount of people have been screwed by raid 0'ing the wrong files/O.S and feel other people should be fairly warned. I have abit of experience (general) with computers but I like to mess with things and from all the horror stories, I can picture the slightest hiccup upsetting the raid and causing utter collapse.
    I'm going to do an experimental OS install I think. See how temperamental it is maybe.

    To rant a little about something else I feel compelled to say... damn, that problem I had before - that couldn't be solved with hours searching google - was solved at the very beginning of the LSI megaraid 1600 quick user guide (not the first one I looked at either). I really love it when companies can supply user friendly, intelligent and simple products/documentation.

    If you're bored just look at how clear it is:

    http://www.lsilogic.com/files/docs/techdocs/storage_stand_prod/RAIDpage/elite1600_qhsg.pdf

    Thanks
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Sounds like you've got things well in hand. As long as you are aware of the limitations, RAID 0 can be a viable option to increase performance. :)
  • ArmoArmo Mr. Nice Guy Is Dead,Only Aqua Remains Member
    edited October 2006
    Saneity wrote:
    Lol..
    is that old guy trying to stand his ground in the face of some life withering bad breath in your sig there... haha

    lol no its a monster that comes out of a tv and attacks her,

    lookup come to daddy by the aphex twin.
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