[olug] built in RAID vs Indi RAID controlers

[Phil Brutsche]

Ben Dinger wrote:
> If you go scsi, there is only one word: Adaptec :).  

Several problems with Adaptec:

1) Expensive, particularly when compared to the excellent LSI Logic
cards

2) When you get into SCSI RAID you start noticing compatibility issues
with Adaptec that don't happen with LSI Logic. I have a pair of Adaptec
aacraid cards (a Dell PERC2 quad channel Ultra2 card and an Adaptec 
2120S single-channel Ultra320 card) that simply will not work in anyting 
with a Via chipset, regardless of CPU.

3) Their plain SCSI cards are great (I have a number of 29160s), but
their RAID cards are another story.  LSI Logic MegaRAID cards have been
well-supported under Linux since before Adaptec started buying out their
competitors in the SCSI RAID arena (this was back in 1998 & 1999 & 2000).

Adaptec is still working out their driver issues, despite having their 
driver in-kernel for several years now (as of 2.4.25 the in-kernel 
aacraid driver panics if you hot-plug a drive one too many times, 
although that could've been an artifact of the ancient firmware the card 
was running at the time).

The difference between their management utilities is like night & day.

Oh, wait, did I mention that these superior (from my perspective, at 
least) MegaRAID cards are cheaper?

Um, OK most of that is specific to their RAID offerings.  If you're not 
using hardware RAID cards one is just as good as the other, although 
point #1 still applies.

-- 

Phil Brutsche
phil at brutsche.us
sometimes brain dumps are good for everyone's benefit, however 
opinionated the content may be