IDE RAID (was SCSI 'n other stuff)

[Ben Scott]

On 11/29/05, Ken D'Ambrosio <ken at jots.org> wrote:
>>   The MegaRAID ATA variants worked well enough, but they were somewhat
>> expensive and inelegant (IIRC, they used SATA-to-SCSI bridge chips).
>
> MegaRAID -- formerly based in none other than Nashua -- has been
> acquired by LSI.  Their technology is nifty, and inexpensive, with one
> substantial issue (IMHO): no XOR chip.  It was all done by the system's
> CPU.

   Hmmmm.  The "MegaRAID" *I* am familar with was a brand name at one
time owned by AMI (the BIOS people), who later sold it to LSI.  All
the MegaRAID cards I've used had an onboard processor (i960, I think)
with a built-in "XOR engine", and dedicated cache RAM.  They didn't
touch the host's CPU for the RAID calculations at all.  And they
certainly weren't inexpensive.  Hundreds of dollars for even the
single SCSI channel cards, and over a thousand for the 4-channel
"Enterprise" product.

  Now, all but one of the models of MegaRAID cards I used were SCSI
RAID.  It may well be that they offer some "fake RAID card" products
in the lower end of the ATA space.

> Hadn't heard of NetCell.  I like it!  Looks like an awesome offering for
> the stuff that 3Ware's too expensive for, such as the small site server,
> or the really-important-engineer's desktop, and so forth.  Thanks for
> the pointer, Ben!

  Sure.  If you try one out, let us all know, please.  The review I
read (it was in "Maximum PC" magazine) implied that the NetCell card
gave better performance then the 3Ware cards they'd tried in the past,
which is what caught my eye.  I didn't even look at price.

-- Ben