SCSI RAID Help

[CyberFed]

Ok guys i just got a job (finally!!) and all the money i make is for just spending on whatever, this is the first thing i want to buy but I need your expert advice
2 18gig 15000 RPM Chettah 8mb cache Ultra160 SCSI drives
and a RAID controller card runnig raid 0

My question is, what is a good SCSI RAID controller card for this setup? Also how do i go about setting this up once i get all the parts do i need to do anything special?
Thanks in advance

[FireMogle]

This isnt exactly going to answer you question, but that will be one niiiiiiiiice array.

[mugambo]

I once bought the Ultra Wide SCSII when they were brand new at 80MB/s. Within a few months I decided it wasn't worth the price. I held that position for a long time until I finally broke down and bought a SCSI 160. I again don't feel like it was money well spent. I am hoping that I never again by myself another high-end SCSI disk drive. I use them professionally like water. I realize that what yolu are saying is that you have some money to burn. I'd burn it somewhere else. How much money are you wanting to spend? The SCSI controllers I am most familar with cost about $2000 and the drives are about $1100 each. Good drives, but I really don't recommend them for your use.
.
Dave

[Penguin4x4]

Adaptec has some of the best available.

[Jon]

Adaptec/DPT is horrible for RAID...single SCSI is OK but they are notorious for poor performance in RAID setups.

I would look into the Mylex Accele/ExtremeRAID U160 series (170), LSI MegaRAID 500 or one of the Intel ServeRAID controllers. These are some of the best 32-bit/33MHz controllers you can get. I recommend the 32/33 over the 64/66 simply because unless you use at least 4 drives, you aren't going to get more throughput with them.

The X15s from Seagate are very nice drives, but the Fujitsu MAN drives are about the best drives, as far as performance and reliability, that you can get right now. I would recommend either drives to anyone so you can't really go wrong if the Seagate is your set choice.

As far as setting it up goes, depends on the controller, OS and drives you end up with. Cables needed will depend on whether you plan on using it internally or in an external SCSI case. Most internal non-SCA drives use 68-pin SCSI cable and the controller you go with should come with what you need if you get it retail.

[Penguin4x4]

Really? They are the only "quality" brand I have heard of..Hmm, I'll look at some Mylex products then. Thanks in advance!

[Jon]

Adaptec only bought their way into the SCSI market...most of their notoriety came from their ASPI layer work. They just have a recognizeable name but you would find in most enterprise-level servers/workstations (as long as it's someone that knows what they're doing) that no Adaptec RAID or SCSI product would be present...at least not where performance was absolutely necessary. There may be alot of DPT products but Adaptec has since bought them out and ruined that product name as well.

Most Adaptec products come in the form of add-on cards for SCSI printers, scanners, etc...all things which performance is second-hand. They just own that market because they make them cheap...and they are just that, "cheap".

Many Compaq/IBM OEM SCSI products are actually manufactured by Mylex. Intel also makes some very nice RAID products although they must exclusively be bought OEM.

[Penguin4x4]

A SCSI printer?! Wow, I have now seen it all.:)

[CyberFed]

sounds good guys thanks alot, once i get the cash and buy everything i'll post the benchies :D

[Wallacebw]

I have worked with the Adaptec 131 series single channel raid I think the number is (aaa-131u2) or something similar... the proformance with (I believe it was 64MB ram on the raid card) was sub Par...

I also work with the MegaRAID series cards (rebadged as Dell's PercII and PercIII) and these work very well... they are more expensive and multichannel cards (the PercIII is a Quad Channel UW160LVD card). I like these cards and have had good sucess with them. We are using arrays (RAID5 mainly) with 10K Seagates (mostly 18GB) with great success and reliability... Raid0 and JBOD I don't use or have much experience with due top data integrity issues (these are servers)...

Brian

[Wallacebw]

also try creating the array wiht a stripe size of 64K and formatting that array with a sector size of 16K... that array should move...

Brian

[Jon]

Originally posted by Penguin4x4
A SCSI printer?! Wow, I have now seen it all.:)

Didn't really mean to stick that in there although there was some type of plotter/printer that was SCSI I saw long ago...only one I ever saw though.

[DManeKid]

i have never used 15k RPM drives before...but my 7200's can get warm, so do oyu think me might need a little air flow on them?

[Penguin4x4]

When used heavily, no doubt. You could also take a look at Koolance's HDD Waterblocks.:)