Topic: Affordable SCSI DRIVES for Raid 5

[Andrei]

While out browsing the net on my lunch break I found these:

http://www.softwareandstuff.com/h_hd_ST446442W4.html

Freeakin' 47Gigs Each!

The Big dependable Seagate ST446452W drives 4 for a buck fifty!

I have heard a lot about the dependability of these drives and a I have 4 on order so we shall see.

Just thought those who want big cheap SCSI drives would like to have this tidbit!

Peace,

Andrei

[Andrei]

Don't take me serously about RAID 5 with these drives they take up two 5.25 Bays!

[dave]

Why not?  

I bought a BIG case that will hold 10 HH drives and put 4 of em in it.  

I picked up an old proliant 2/DH card for $20 and I found the drives on ebay, an auction for 4 for $99 +shipping. I have 150 GIG RAID5 array for less than $150.  They're relatively quiet and with the Compaq card they are pretty fast.  They run hot but with an additional fan in the chassis, they stay fairly cool.

[Andrei]

Nice!

[Andrei]

Hey Dave,

OK I found a Compaq DH array card. So was there any problems configuring it to work with SME?

[dave]

This can be a tedious process, but the 2/DH cards features (IMO) make it worth it.  It's battery backed cache has saved me more than once, and the fact that the cache exists is a big benefit too.  Should you ever decide to add drives, the card will allow you to expand the array.  You can setup an external cabinet and put 7 more drives on that connector (total 14 drives).

If you have a genuine compaq server, no problem - you can use the smart start CD to configure the card properly.  The problem comes from the fact that I don't have a compaq server and the array config utility needs a windows OS to configure.

This is what I did:

I found an old IDE drive with enough capacity to hold Win2K workstation - I think you can use Win98 also.  I used an old 840MEG drive.

Install the 2/DH card in the PC with it's hard drives attached and the IDE drive.

Install your windows OS.

Download and install the Compaq array configuration utility, http://www.compaq.com/support/files/server/us/locate/20_1108.html#88 - you might also want to look for the latest firmware update for the card also.  The current version for the 2/DH is 4.50.

Run the utility to configure your array.  It will initialize in the background, I think it's essentially lowlevel formatting the array.  When I did mine, it took about 3 hours to complete.  You can check the status of the array, when the init is complete, it's status will be 'OK'.

Once the array configuration is complete, any OS will see the array as a single drive.  You can remove the IDE drive, or keep it attached and dual boot the box.  I left the drive in the chassis but disconnected it.  If I ever need to reconfig the array, I plug the drive in and set the BIOS to boot the IDE device first.

Now just start an SME installation.  Tell it you are installing to a single drive. SME will see the full volume, partition, format and use it as it would in any single drive installation.

I have a 2/P (the predecessor to the 2/DH) card in my SME box with a trio of old full size 20 GIG drives, RAID5. (http://www.dgwebhosting.com/sysinfo - in the Hardware Information block, under PCI Devices, you can see the compaq smart 2/P raid card listed).  My 2/DH is set up in my Win2K Server domain controller with 4 47GIG drives, RAID5.  I have just shy of 150GIG of drive space.  I use that to backup all my workstations to and as common file storage.

If you want more info, feel free to email me off line, dave@shipmanhome.net.

[Andrei Taylor]

Thanks Dave! This is going to be sweet I can't wait for my 2/DH array and hard drives to arrive!

Peace,

Andrei

[Peter]

Another excellent SCSI card is the DPT SmartCache - I have a SmartCache IV with the RC4040 Raid/Cache module. Up to 64 meg of cache, plus RAID 0/1/5.
Once the array is configured (from DOS boot diskette, then disk manager diskette)
it does not require a seperate load disk. EATA driver is built into Linux.

[Andrei Taylor]

And it's cheap to on Ebay $6.00 for a use one. But I already ordered my Compaq. Oh well!

[dave]

Andrei,

Did you ever get this set up?  

Just curious...  Let me know if you had any problems.