CentOS - Nov 2005 - Highpoint Rocketraid 2240

Has anyone on the list used one of these w/Linux?  We currently use 
Linux + Cinelerra for editing uncompressed video (and a few dual G5 macs 
running Final Cut Pro).  Current editing stations are getting a bit long 
in the tooth so I've been mulling over a mass upgrade.  8-)

These cards are interesting to me because they are PCI-X and support 4 
SATAII drives per multilane/infiniband connector for a total of 16 
drives.  Multilane is interesting to me because the editor can use a SFF 
system (tiny desktop footprint) with 1M multilane cables talking to the 
pile of disks in an external enclosure stashed out of the way with its 
own redundant power supply.  I was going to just order some multilane 
3Ware cards, but one of my more technically inclined video editors 
suggested this card.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards,

On Sun, 2005-11-20 at 17:52 -0500, Chris Mauritz wrote:
> Has anyone on the list used one of these w/Linux?  We currently use 
> Linux + Cinelerra for editing uncompressed video (and a few dual G5 macs 
> running Final Cut Pro).  Current editing stations are getting a bit long 
> in the tooth so I've been mulling over a mass upgrade.  8-)
> These cards are interesting to me because they are PCI-X and support 4 
> SATAII drives per multilane/infiniband connector for a total of 16 
> drives.  Multilane is interesting to me because the editor can use a SFF 
> system (tiny desktop footprint) with 1M multilane cables talking to the 
> pile of disks in an external enclosure stashed out of the way with its 
> own redundant power supply.  I was going to just order some multilane 
> 3Ware cards, but one of my more technically inclined video editors 
> suggested this card.
> Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
The 2220 and 2240 are _FRAID_.  No hardware.

Now these aren't the first software/host-based, 4-16 channel PCI-X SATA
RAID solutions to ever be introduced.  Broadcom has its RAIDCore series
as well.  But _unlike_ the Broadcom products, which actually have some
good software features (even for Linux), HighPoint seems to skimp on
software design.  They are rather simplistic in design and support
(e.g., no multiple card support).

Tom's Hardware didn't do any performance benchmarks, and what they did
was very minimal.  But they did do some queuing and other load testing.
The RocketRAID 2220 they tried _tanked_ compared to even the RAIDCore.
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20051031/the_death_knell_for_scsi_raid-12.html


If you really want to save money, consider the Broadcom RAIDCore instead
of the HighPoint RocketRAID series.  Or get a real hardware card for a
few bucks more.

-- Bryan

P.S.  In case you haven't heard, SATA-II is more "marketing" like
USB
2.0.  You can't actually get 3GHz (300GBps) _unless_ it is SATA-IO.
Just like you can't get 480Mbps (60MBps) out of USB 2.0 unless it is a
EHCI controller.

"Serial Storage is the Future ..."
  http://thebs413.blogspot.com/2005/08/serial-storage-is-future.html  


-- 
Bryan J. Smith   b.j.smith at ieee.org   http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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