On Fri, 3 Dec 1999, Peter Seebach wrote:

> I'm trying to evaluate RAID solutions.  Here's what I've come up with
> so far:
> 
> * RAIDframe (sp?  caps?) is pretty neat, but may not interact well with
>   soft updates yet.

I like RAIDframe a *lot*.  You can always just say no to soft updates.

> * DPT SmartRaid IV is useless unless you have MS-DOS to boot to and run
>   their setup program.
> * DPT SmartRaid V can't be driven by any free OS, ever, under any
>   circumstances, because they require an NDA.

Another Hardware thingy would be the Adaptec external RAID controller,
which is a 5 1/4 form factor (HH) object with a SCSI (or FC) in and
two SCSI channels out to drives.  Fits nicely in a drive slot and has
a nice front panel display / menu for doing RAID operations.  

The only downside is $$$ and it takes a drive slot.  

> 
> That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but the I2O people were trying VERY
> hard to make everything stay secret.

YUP, thank Wintel.

> 
> Anything obvious I'm missing?
> 
> -s
> 

I've built a very nice little RAID system for home (every home should
have one) using RAIDframe / NetBSD 1.4.1 / UDMA drives,  very good
performance ( 30 MB/sec read, 23 MB/sec write - 6 drives arranged
as a 4+1+1 RAID V, 25 GB usable, under $2K total ).  The only "trick"
was to arrange things so that each drive has it's own UDMA controller
(no slaves).  One of the best RAID systems (stability wise) I've run
across in 10 years of building/doing RAID (since the days of funding
the Berkeley RAID project!)

-Alan
poston@rockhead.com