[olug] Promise FastTrak 100

[Matthew G. Marsh]

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Brandon Lederer wrote:

> I guess I am concerned about the processor overhead in a server.  Or is
> there not that much overhead for mirroring.  I understand how striping would
> have serious overhead.

Two points:

1. In a SMP system you can use slow processors (I have (2) 200M Pentium
   Pros) and not worry about overhead due to threading structures in
   in use (unless you are using 2.1/2.2early)

2. If your single processor is > 450M on a server what are you worried
   about?

Note that any processor over ~200M can drive a LAN connection fully and
still have some leftover cycles. Thus the empirical derivation above.

FWIW - PlainStripes < Mirroring < RAID5 in terms of CPU intensivity.

And I would not run RAID5 without a SMP system (I have one with a 2G
Athlon single CPU that gasps during hard usage)

Tweedle for Deetails...

mgm

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brandon Lederer [mailto:brandonl at hms4emc.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 8:26 AM
> To: 'Jay at RebootTheUser.com'; 'Omaha Linux User Group'
> Subject: RE: [olug] Promise FastTrak 100
>
>
> So which is better?  Linux Software RAID in the kernel or the Promise
> ATARAID TX controllers?  3ware is the only Hardware RAID for IDE?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jay Swackhamer [mailto:Jay at RebootTheUser.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 8:02 AM
> To: Omaha Linux User Group
> Subject: Re: [olug] Promise FastTrak 100
>
>
> Yes, with the Promise ATARAID controllers, it is 95% software raid. The
> drivers do the work, not the hardware. If you wanted to be cheap, there is
> only a small modification needed to the regular promise ata PCI
> controllers to make them function like the TX raid controllers.
>
> > I doubt I can use the devices.... I just said they exist......... but they
> > are
> > mirroring.  this definitely can't be software RAID like in the kernel and
> > stuff.  That is Software RAID..   this is something different, isnt it?
> > I
> > did   0, none,  Nada  configuration in the OS for this RAID, so how is it
> > software RAID?
> --
> Jay Swackhamer
> Reboot The User
> 15791 West Dodge Road
> Suite 135
> Omaha, NE 68118
> (402) 933-6449
> (402) 933-6456 Fax
> http://www.RebootTheUser.com

Hey Jay - Your email still no likie me.... ;-}

--------------------------------------------------
Matthew G. Marsh,  President
Paktronix Systems LLC
1506 North 59th Street
Omaha  NE  68104
Phone: (402) 553-2288
Email: mgm at midwestlinux.com
WWW:  http://www.midwestlinux.com
--------------------------------------------------