[mythtv-users] NAS RAID 5 for MythTv

[Stroller]

On 9 Feb 2007, at 00:08, Robin Hill wrote:
> ...
>> I'd be very interested to hear any other recommendations for an SATA
>> hardware RAID card that supports hot-swap & can be fully configured
>> under Linux. ... far more important is driver support. I'd like a  
>> hot-
>> swap card that can easily be queried for driver status using the CLI,
>> logs errors to syslog and which can be expected to be supported under
>> Linux forever & a day...
>
> I think the 3ware card meets all of these - there's a CLI as well as a
> web interface, errors are logged to syslog and drivers are included  
> with
> the main kernel tree.  Another very useful thing is that the  
> individual
> drives can still be accessed for SMART monitoring - something most  
> RAID
> controllers don't seem to support.  I've actually just picked up a
> secord 3ware card (a 7500) - I have several old PATA drives and  
> that was
> the cheapest way of getting them all hooked up to the new motherboard!
> I would recommend taking a very good look at the 9550 though - the  
> specs
> are significantly better than the 9500, not sure how price compares
> though.

Thanks very much for your advice, and to everyone else who responded.  
These 3ware cards certainly do look like nice kit - I'm especially  
impressed seeing the output of `/c0 help` that Jarrod posted, as it's  
reassuring to think I can write a bash script that will check drive  
status every hour or so and email me a notification only if there's a  
problem.

It looks like the 9500 may be available quite a chunk cheaper than  
the 9550 if you're in a position to shop around.

What I didn't consider specifying in my original question was the  
flavour of PCI to be used. When I realised that it's quite easy to  
spend £400 on one of these cards I suddenly wondered if that's money  
I really want to spend on regular old-fangled PCI or whether new  
investment on motherboard hardware is warranted. Will plain-old PCI  
slots still be available if I want to place this card in a new system  
I buy (from motherboard up) in a couple of years?

I was originally charmed by the thought of a hardware RAID card &  
some of these 5-in-3 bays because that seems very economical for a  
home server. Since processing demands of a file-server is low this  
seems like an ideal opportunity to repurpose old hardware, but like  
always I start to increase my anticipated spend when I recklessly  
consider "future-proofing".

Stroller.