[olug] Sorta OT: Adaptec RAID port card availability

[Phil Brutsche]

Daniel Linder wrote:

>>1. Which Adaptec cards can I get that has RAIDport II support & will work
>>in  this motherboard? Is the ARO-1130SA the correct one?
>>1a. I doubt it, but would anyone else make a comparable card for this?
> 
> 
> Have you checked with the motherboard manufacturers website to see if they
> sell the add-on card?  If you purchase through them, you might pay more
> but then you'll have one potential tech support group to call if/when it
> stops working.  If you don't buy from them, at least you'll have a part
> number to 'Google' on and see who else sells it.

Further, considering that they haven't been made in 5 or 6 years, and
that you'll need to find some 168-pin 60ns ECC EDO memory for them, it
just might be cheaper and/or easier to buy a card that you KNOW will be
supported under Linux, like an AMI/LSI Logic MegaRAID or Mylex card:

http://search.ebay.com/megaraid
http://search.ebay.com/mylex

No matter what card you get (Adaptec, MegaRAID or Mylex) MAKE SURE you
get memory with it ;)

>>2. Suggest sources for the card?
>>3. Any experiences with using these cards in *nix and/or WinJunk?

Based on my own googling, a quick grep of 2.4.x and 2.6.x source trees,
and a look at Adaptec's site, it won't work under Linux:
http://opensource.adaptec.com/linux_faqs1.html

Granted, it's an (almost) 4 year old page, but it doesn't look like much
has changed.

As of July 2001 the general consensus seems to be that the ARO cards are
crap from a standpoint of support and performance, and that your time &
money is better spent on software RAID or some other vendor's card.

The successors to the AAA- and ARO- family of cards (such as the dpt_i2o
2100S and 2110S and the aacraid 2120S) have much better support under a
much wider ranger of operating systems - the AAA- and ARO- cards are
pretty much limited to Windows 2000, NT4, Novell, and SCO Unix.

>>4. Any suggestions with using this sort of setup?

> So, what type of MB was this?  How do you like it so far?  Does it take
> ECC DDR RAM? Do you need two 512MB sticks? ;)

Based on the fact that he's looking for a RAIDport card, I'd say it
needs ECC PC100 :)  The RAIDport III dates back to 1999, and I reeaally
don't think they used DDR back then...

But hey, if those are the same 512MB sticks you were trying to sell in
August, I can use 'em.

-- 

Phil Brutsche
phil at brutsche.us