Looking for a Cheapie RAID controller... or does this machine already have one?

[dark_15]

Hey every1,

I have an old dual processor IBM PC server 325... it runs great and all, but I was looking for a cheap RAID 0 controller for it...

Here's the best resources I could find... (http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/product.do?doctypeind=2&doccategoryind=0&operatingsystemind=49977&template=%2Fproductpage%2Flandingpages%2FproductPa geLandingPage.vm&brandind=8&familyind=50043&machineind=57986&modelind=57995&partnumberind=0&subcategoryind=0&validate=true)
I wanted to set two SCSI 4 GB hard drives in a RAID 0 configuration for use as a free file server...

O yea... I remember seeing this in the SCSI Select Utility... 40MB/Sec max thoroughput

They are working fine with the onboard SCSI controller, but I have never messed with SCSI before and I was wondering if I could set the SCSI Select Utility to Run in a RAID 0 configuration... do I need to find a seperate card to run this properly?

I managed to pull this old machine from our school before the whole storage are was flooded...
So when the other servers like these got soaked but the hard drives were intact...
Well... you get the idea ;)

Edit - I was searching deeper into IBM's stuff today... and this is what I found...
Hard Drive 1 (http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=DDSE-42DUT6&tempselected=5)
2 hard drives have a 68-pin (female) to 50-pin SCSI F/W (female) adapter. (part number 32G3925) - those are the one I want to configure into RAID 0

Listing of Available SCSI Adapters (http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=DDSE-43VNG7&tempselected=5#4)
Well, all I know is that I plugged the cable into the motherboard... so IDK what else it is...

If this setup does not support the hardware raid 0, would this software (http://www-306.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-495PES.html) help?

[Xaotic]

First, the Hardware Maintenance Manual is here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=SCOD-43NJUX

The SCSI controller on the planar does not support RAID functions and is a UW controller, if I remember correctly. RAID-0 is not going to be an option with the hardware you have now. Worse, without using a controller card, there are no decently fast IO systems. The IDE controller will be either PIO mode 3 or 4 and the onboard SCSI you might get 20MB/s from(using new disks, the older ones will be even worse). They are usually stable and make acceptable low bandwidth fileservers, but don't expect it to fly.

To do RAID-0, you would need a SCSI RAID controller. The older controllers(U2W and U160) tend to have abysmal write performance and the new ones(U320) would be wasted attached to this chassis. Additionally, a new controller will not be cost effective as you'd definitely need to replace the drives to get substantial performance improvements.

Your best bet for performance would probably be to pull the SCSI cage and replace it with IDE drives and an IDE controller(possibly RAID). This would allow you to get decent IO performance, while controlling costs.

If this is to be a file server, RAID-0 is probably a bad idea. This server will be limited in throughput by the network, much more than the disk subsystem. Additionally, if you are using it for a data storage location, stability should be more important than speed. If you do RAID, RAID-1 or 1+0 would be a better solution for the application. Either will have good reads and slow writes, but generally acceptable performance.