adaptec hardware raid 1 29320a hostraid

[Michael Hanulec]

Hi..

The 29320-R and 39320-R SCSI HBA's w/ 'HostRAID' features require one the 
following:

1. A special version of the aic79xx, from the version 2.x tree i believe, 
to be compiled.  This is NOT the default version which ANY linux distro 
uses.  After compiling this software you will be able to use the devices 
as just any other HBA.  If this is your boot device you are going to need 
to add a IDE disk to the system, install FC2, compile this new adaptec 
source for the -boot kernel and make a RedHat boot disk for this card.

( This problems don't occur w/ any motherboard i've seen w/ onboard 7902 
Adaptec chips... but these boards also don't offer this RAID feature )

2. Adaptec offers a VERY limited set of pre-compiled kernel modules which 
require a specific kernel in order to get HostRAID to work.  I think this 
is B.S.... and thus I don't recommend that anyone buy this card if they 
want simple hardware RAID1 or RAID0 functionality.


If you want a cheap hardware RAID (0 or 1) solution I would HIGHLY 
recommend using the LSI LSI20320-R which offers a hardware raid via the 
commonly found 'MPT' driver, this is the same driver used for their 
expensive/full featured RAID card.  I think you might be able to sell your 
29320R and use your left over $$ to buy this LSI card as it is almost 1/2 
the price of the Adaptec solution.

If any one has any other server level hardware questions wrt. Linux 
support please ask away as I spend too much of my day debugging this crap 
(although i secretly think its fun... just not when i have huge deadlines 
to meet).  Some people on the list know me.. I'm a UB grad, an ex-CIT 
undergrad Help Desk supervisor and after a few different gigs here and 
there I'm now the Director of Technology and Production at a San Diego, CA 
based 'white-box' PC vendor specializing in Linux HPC clusters.

Good luck w/ which either option you decide to go down.  I personally 
would go buy that LSI card instead.

-Mike

--
hanulec at hanulec.com		cell: 858.518.2647 && 516.410.4478
https://secure.hanulec.com	      EFnet irc && aol im: hanulec

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004, anthonyriga wrote:

> Has anyone tried to setup hardware raid 1 with
> hostraid enabled using  adaptec  29320 card? I have
> succeded doing software raid hostraid disabled but
> really want to use hardware raid for hot swapping. I
> am able to setup the actual array but when I am
> installing Fedora 2 it aasks you to load the aic79xx
> drivers. I install the driver during the Fedora load
> it hangs up and freezes. Any suggestions? It says on
> the website that it supports hostraid but now Im
> beginng to think it dosent. Any suggestions? HELP!
>
>
>
>
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