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    SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

    So, after having to move back in with my parents, I saw some things I forgot I had. Well I didn't forget them, just they'r heavy and I had absolutely NO use for them at my old place

    One of them is a PE 2650, the other, which I thought was a server when I bought it at goodwill for $100, turned out to be a promise vtrack 15100, which is..well..awesome. 15 hot swappable sata carriers, all intact

    anyhoooo, when I first got it I booted it up, got a serial cable and hooked it to an old system, telneted' it, reset the IP address and used promise's management software to see if it worked (actually you have to run the management software on another computer, then connect to that with ANOTHER computer over your lan). works great, dual redundant PSU's, scsi 160 external interface /w 128M cache, I hooked it to that box after putting a 49160 hba in there mirrored two drives I had. Didn't test it for that terribly long time, but it had no hitches whatsoever. Diamond in the rough, though I still want to take those PSU's apart and check the caps, as well as some of the caps on the power backplane and the larger ones on scsi board. where was I? oh yeah, all the sata ports are 150, and I know, most drives these days do not exceed 70-90MBps, but there are some other advanced features like command queuing, tagged queuing, and raid specific things that I hear a lot of people here complain about (on WD RE and raptor series). Right now my server is a PE 1800 /w two 1TB WD 1GB's in raid 1 (linux raid), and the server has 0.001% free space. I have my downloads, media (video editing), isos, and rar'd backup of my old drive on it, so I was thinking, using the promise and when the price of HD's drops or if I actually get a GOOD job, I can raid 1the TB's for my downloads, raid 10 some 2tb's for my media, and raid 6 1 or 2 TB's all the other ports (probably raid 6, with 2TB's thats 14 gigs). Wait cancel that, it only supports raid 5. Hm with 9 ports left I could do a raid 10 across 4 two drive mirrors, leaving me with 10gb. not bad. I would probably just map my drives to multiple folders there, as well as store my unused video editing projects there. I don't see any reason why I can't do this. I'd probably just have an ubuntu server on the PE 1800, and put the 64bit pci 49160 in it. I would use the 2650, it does have more ram, but ddr266 and no 64-bit support. Does this sound plausible? Not sure if it can take 3TB drives or not, ether way they're probably overkill...though my current plan seems kind of overkill too

    With the PE 1800, on a gigabit switch and EXT3 compression, I could pull about 70-90 MB/s off the server? Do you think I could pull same or more with the vtrack? Maybe not off the downloads (raid 1) but probably off the 10 arrays right?

    anything I should know here? take in account for? anyone want to give me 2 grand for some WD blacks? 4 grand for some RE4's?
    Last edited by Uranium-235; 02-21-2012, 08:57 PM.
    Cap Datasheet Depot: http://www.paullinebarger.net/DS/
    ^If you have datasheets not listed PM me

    #2
    Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

    To be honest, I wouldn't bother with it in its current form (a drive holder/nas device).

    It's got a maximum sustained speed of 200 MB/s on both channels added up - considering some of the new 2-3 TB drives start at around 130 MB/s and go down to about 70 MB/s, you'd saturate its fabric with 3 drives out of 15.

    It's got redundant power supplies, the ones in it probably have about 70-80% efficiency, so considering for now you're using about 2-3 drives, you'll spend about 100 watts to power about 60 watts of electronics.
    The noise is also high, considering it's a 3u system designed for racks, where noise factor is less important

    No matter how many raid features it has, it's still sata 150, which limits modern drives - basically it has the functionality of a 50$ pci (-x) hardware raid card you can find on ebay.

    I'd gut the internals and keep the case as it's super nice to hold drives in it and the power supplies should still be decent.. if they have the standard atx connectors. I'd then mount somehow a matx motherboard inside with an AMD/Intel cpu and an extra raid controller and be done with it.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

      Originally posted by mariushm View Post
      No matter how many raid features it has, it's still sata 150, which limits modern drives.
      It does not limit them at all.
      Head-disk transfer rate is STILL not up to SATA 150.
      For the most part SATA 300 & 600 are pointless.
      .
      The faster SATA's will fill the buffer faster. - That's the ONLY advantage.
      Once the buffer is full they are the same speed because at that point the bottle neck is at the heads which is slower than ALL the SATA interfaces.
      .
      Last edited by PCBONEZ; 02-22-2012, 06:17 AM.
      Mann-Made Global Warming.
      - We should be more concerned about the Intellectual Climate.

      -
      Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

      - Dr Seuss
      -
      You can teach a man to fish and feed him for life, but if he can't handle sushi you must also teach him to cook.
      -

      Comment


        #4
        Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

        While I agree that most hard drives with platters don't do 150 MB/s, a lot of them are very close to that limit.

        Here's a benchmark of my drives, showing all getting as high as 136 MB/s and keep in mind i'm doing other things with the system now, so it's not a very accurate test.



        I'm saying it's not worth it because the fabric, the processor moving data in that 3u unit, can only do 200 MB/s with both channel combined and can do only 20k IOPS. This was a decent value for the time when this machine came out but with more recent drives, even the integrated chipsets can do between 10k and 19k iops in software raid, as you can see here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...a,2374-11.html

        A socket AM2/AM3 with 760g chipset is about 45-60$ and a cpu can be found on eBay for as low as 10-15$.. and you get the same performance this noisy power hungry thing will do - but as I said, I recommend gutting the internals and keeping the case + psu (if atx compatible) and mounting inside the drives.

        When you get 3 drives or more into a RAID-5/RAID-10, you're basically killing the performance of the drives with this hardware.
        Attached Files

        Comment


          #5
          Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

          I'm getting 70-90MBps with my current server, so i'm sure 200MB/s is better. However its actually limited to 160 cause of the scsi U160 connector

          but I ran into another problem during my research, 64-bit LBA. Like 48-bit, it has to be supported by the controller bios and OS, as well as drivers. Well the adaptec 39160 only supports 48-bit LBA, limiting me to 2tb volumes max. I might go ahead and just use 1TB volumes and split my main shares into single raid 10 2tb volumes. Or get a $169 pci-e u320 scsi card, still limited to 160 though cause of the vtraks interface

          A socket AM2/AM3 with 760g chipset is about 45-60$ and a cpu can be found on eBay for as low as 10-15$.. and you get the same performance this noisy power hungry thing will do - but as I said, I recommend gutting the internals and keeping the case + psu (if atx compatible) and mounting inside the drives.

          When you get 3 drives or more into a RAID-5/RAID-10, you're basically killing the performance of the drives with this hardware.
          yes but I already HAVE this hardware. Its hardware raid, and i'm pretty sure hardware raid 10 will be awesome

          I'm also pretty sure that I would use 4 1tb drives in 10 for the volumes

          oh yes, I also realize you have no idea what a vtrak is. There is no motherboard, or 'processors' as you're thinking of them. Its a sata backplane, connected to a controller card, with dual redundant, hot swappable PSU's. This is server equipment, not a x86/64 computer. It has its own firmware, but no 'OS'. now it LOOKS like a bigass server. But it, in itself has no SMB sharing capabilities or other kind of advanced OS features. It hooks TO a server (via external SCSI) and the server runs linux or whathaveyou and you samba share the raid volumes attached to each SCSI LUN (which are logic assignable via the management software inside the vtrak

          Say I make a raid 10 across 4 1TB drives, I assign it to SCSI LUN 1, the 39160 card sees a SCSI device on LUN 1, which in most cases is usually a physical scsi hard drive manual/auto set to LUN 1, but in this case is a logical LUN that the vtrak reports, all data to that LUN is processed by the massive hardware controller card on the vtrak, and the array is read/written to. Mind you this case has a nice cache (I think 64-128M or so), and with a UPS, I'd even enable write caching. Still, limited to 160MB/s

          oh yes bonez I think the massive cache on the hardware card will make up for some of the slower cache read/writes for each individual drives
          Last edited by Uranium-235; 02-22-2012, 01:22 PM.
          Cap Datasheet Depot: http://www.paullinebarger.net/DS/
          ^If you have datasheets not listed PM me

          Comment


            #6
            Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

            Originally posted by mariushm View Post
            While I agree that most hard drives with platters don't do 150 MB/s, a lot of them are very close to that limit.

            Here's a benchmark of my drives, showing all getting as high as 136 MB/s and keep in mind i'm doing other things with the system now, so it's not a very accurate test.
            Exactly.
            When you can't get over 150 MB/s in actual real world use anyway a faster interface isn't an advantage at all.
            .
            The limitation is a physical MECHANICAL one.
            Basically, heads can only move across the disk so fast and still locate accurately...
            Interfaces can't fix that and they can't get around it either.
            .
            The only thing that does get around it is a form of RAID with Stripping.
            Even then,, SATA 300/600 isn't an advantage over SATA 150 because the individual drives still have the same mechanical limits.
            .
            .
            Fact is the 136 MB/s you are getting is ~barely~ faster than ATA133.
            ATA133 drives with the same vintage [tech level] mechanicals as your drives [the mechanicals have advanced over time but slowly] wouldn't have any trouble keeping up with your SATA drives.
            .
            The interface just ISN'T that important most of the time.
            .
            Last edited by PCBONEZ; 02-23-2012, 11:06 AM.
            Mann-Made Global Warming.
            - We should be more concerned about the Intellectual Climate.

            -
            Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

            - Dr Seuss
            -
            You can teach a man to fish and feed him for life, but if he can't handle sushi you must also teach him to cook.
            -

            Comment


              #7
              Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

              Originally posted by Uranium-235 View Post
              oh yes bonez I think the massive cache on the hardware card will make up for some of the slower cache read/writes for each individual drives
              I may be mistaken but I think the cache/RAM on the card itself is for the RAID calculations and not for temp data storage.
              I suppose it could be for both.
              Never really looked at that in detail.
              .
              Last edited by PCBONEZ; 02-23-2012, 11:08 AM.
              Mann-Made Global Warming.
              - We should be more concerned about the Intellectual Climate.

              -
              Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

              - Dr Seuss
              -
              You can teach a man to fish and feed him for life, but if he can't handle sushi you must also teach him to cook.
              -

              Comment


                #8
                Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

                So I guess the SATA-150 3ware card I found isn't complete junk... nor is my ATA-100 3ware card in my fileserver...
                sigpic

                (Insert witty quote here)

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

                  Originally posted by ratdude747 View Post
                  So I guess the SATA-150 3ware card I found isn't complete junk... nor is my ATA-100 3ware card in my fileserver...
                  Nope, they aren't junk.
                  .
                  The only people that say they are are the people selling newer cards and those inclined to believe salesmen without applying any critical thinking.
                  .
                  At some point availability becomes an issue and you have to upgrade just because the older stuff is hard to find.
                  It's already happening if you want -new- drives and cards.

                  I don't see that happening any time soon for used RAID cards though.
                  They made zillions of 3Ware 9500 and 9550 cards and they saw lots of use in server farms.
                  - Both are pretty cheap on eBay these days too, simply because so many were made.
                  Not too hard to score 12-Ports for under $50 and 4-Ports for under $30 with just a little bit of patience.
                  [I picked up a 4-Port for $8 a couple weeks ago. That included shipping.]

                  8-Ports usually cost more than 12-Ports - which seems weird until you think.
                  8-Ports come in low profile and 12-Ports don't.
                  Low profile is handy for some servers because you don't need a 90-degree riser card.
                  .
                  Last edited by PCBONEZ; 02-23-2012, 11:59 AM.
                  Mann-Made Global Warming.
                  - We should be more concerned about the Intellectual Climate.

                  -
                  Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

                  - Dr Seuss
                  -
                  You can teach a man to fish and feed him for life, but if he can't handle sushi you must also teach him to cook.
                  -

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

                    To the main question.

                    SATA 300 work fine on SATA 150 controllers.
                    SATA 600 'should' too but I haven't actually tried that one.

                    I'm not going to pay more to get an interface that does me no good at all, so I don't buy SATA 600 drives.
                    I 'think' I have some that came in a server I'm parting out but I haven't got to testing the drives yet. They might be 150 or 300 though. I just 'think' I saw 6Gb/s written on them when I pulled them out. I didn't look that close because they are Seagate and all my 3.5" drives are standardized to specific WD models to make parts swapping easier. I'm just going to flip them if they test good.
                    .
                    Last edited by PCBONEZ; 02-23-2012, 11:58 AM.
                    Mann-Made Global Warming.
                    - We should be more concerned about the Intellectual Climate.

                    -
                    Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

                    - Dr Seuss
                    -
                    You can teach a man to fish and feed him for life, but if he can't handle sushi you must also teach him to cook.
                    -

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

                      Originally posted by PCBONEZ View Post
                      To the main question.

                      SATA 300 work fine on SATA 150 controllers.
                      SATA 600 'should' too but I haven't actually tried that one.

                      I'm not going to pay more to get an interface that does me no good at all, so I don't buy SATA 600 drives.
                      I 'think' I have some that came in a server I'm parting out but I haven't got to testing the drives yet. They might be 150 or 300 though. I just 'think' I saw 6Gb/s written on them when I pulled them out. I didn't look that close because they are Seagate and all my 3.5" drives are standardized to specific WD models to make parts swapping easier. I'm just going to flip them if they test good.
                      .
                      I knew that 90% of 300 cards will work in a 150 interface, but I was also wondering about some of the technology missing for most 150 interfaces (NCQ, TCQ). After some reading, the 15100 does support TCQ, hopefully it will be able to tell that a newer 300 drive will too and use it. As far as compatability, I plan to get WD Blacks, and I've seen a lot of 1TB blacks with a jumper block, one of them I bet will force the speed down to 150

                      I was also asking if there is anything wrong or a bad idea with what i'm doing. I paid $100 for that vtrak and I hope to use it, but I wasn't 100% sure about any pitfalls with my plan. After some research, the main pitfall with my original plan is the lack of support for 64-bit LBA, which i'm still not sure the vtrak controller will use. I got some rather hit and miss searches during my research. I also got some inconsistencies in the vtrak research right from promise. Thier website lists it as sata 150, but a pdf I also got in a hit from promises site lists the 15100 as sata 300. I hate it when companies do this bullshit, there is probably more the one version of the 15100, one that might support 300, but they don't give you any idea on a way to tell. It is an old piece of equipment but come on

                      Wait, hmm. I have a few Dell Perc 3/DC raid cards, some with memory and backup batts. I wondered if I just made two raid 1 array on the vtrak, then raided raid 0 them on the CARD! That would get rid of the 64-bit LBA issue on the vtrak, but I think these cards also have a 48-bit LBA, and I bet the overall logical volume limit is 48-bit.

                      edit: LOL I loves dells website bullshit: "The 2TB limit is an industry-wide SCSI limitation.". It is bull, they just don't want to say they never made a firmware with 64-bit addressing. The scsi card I saw on newegg supports U160 and U320 with 64-bit addressing.
                      Last edited by Uranium-235; 02-23-2012, 01:21 PM.
                      Cap Datasheet Depot: http://www.paullinebarger.net/DS/
                      ^If you have datasheets not listed PM me

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

                        LBA is just the addressing scheme. (Logical Block Addressing)
                        Nothing to do with data transfer at all, just storage size.

                        With 48-bit addressing (assuming default 512k clusters) the limit is 144 petabytes. (144,000 TB).
                        - I don't think you (or anyone) will need 64-bit addressing anytime soon.

                        The other limits you hear about are OS & File System issues.
                        AFAIK they all have to do with -partition- size, not drive size.
                        .
                        Last edited by PCBONEZ; 02-23-2012, 01:47 PM.
                        Mann-Made Global Warming.
                        - We should be more concerned about the Intellectual Climate.

                        -
                        Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

                        - Dr Seuss
                        -
                        You can teach a man to fish and feed him for life, but if he can't handle sushi you must also teach him to cook.
                        -

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

                          You're so right, but, partially right. You are correct though, its more then a matter of 64-bit LBA, but an enhancement that usually comes along-side 64-bit LBA implementations

                          one of the best descriptions (though difficult for most us mortals, you should understand it bonez) is here:

                          http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/a...s-storage.aspx

                          Which explains it in windows, but there are some controller implementation that actually limit it. In the 3/DC and those models around it, it actually will not let you make a logical volume more then 2TB, it will say you can't in the controller implementation if you try. Though I bet this was an idea on dells part so people won't have trouble installing server 2003 with such large volumes (back when 2003 had no larger sectoring support). Which I think it does now, but not on system volumes

                          edit: Whait a minute!!!! I should make a whole bunch of 2TB Raid 0 volumes, and use the 39160, then...use linux raid for mirroring! Then I could actually create a RAID 6 Volume in linux out of each 0 strip on the vtrak. Hm, that might be slow though, and management might be kind of a PITA. Maybe I should make multiple raid 1 2TB arrays, then raid 0 3 of them, making one total volume of 6TB, hell I might add another one and make 8, cause linux raid has no volume limitations in this aspect. The 39160 will be able to see multiple 2TB LUN's, and linux raid will take care of everything else. Might be a performance hit though. With so many transfers from these LUN's, it might take up some serious bandwidth on the actual U160 VHDCI and the 39160
                          Last edited by Uranium-235; 02-23-2012, 01:54 PM.
                          Cap Datasheet Depot: http://www.paullinebarger.net/DS/
                          ^If you have datasheets not listed PM me

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

                            Logical Volume = Partition.

                            The 2TB is using NTFS with the default 512 bit clusters and it limits *partition size*, not drive size.
                            You can get 16TB partitions by using 4096 bit clusters.
                            .
                            Personally I can't see a reason to have partitions larger than 2TB anyway.
                            Dumping everything into giant partitions makes finding things with an OS search utility take forever. - PITA.
                            .
                            Last edited by PCBONEZ; 02-23-2012, 02:06 PM.
                            Mann-Made Global Warming.
                            - We should be more concerned about the Intellectual Climate.

                            -
                            Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

                            - Dr Seuss
                            -
                            You can teach a man to fish and feed him for life, but if he can't handle sushi you must also teach him to cook.
                            -

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

                              Also, I would stay away from the 'fancy' RAIDs and use RAID 1 and 10 depending on what it is.
                              Stuff that's just archived can go on RAID 1.
                              Stuff you are currently using and want to be fast I would use 500Gb drives [max] with no more that RAID 10.

                              [I'm assuming the performance concern is about games.]
                              There is no reason to keep games you haven't used in months on the fast drives.
                              Same-same with back-up CD's, videos, the bills, credit report, old programs, picture archives, etc..
                              The 'work horse' drives you use all the time are more likely to wear-out/fail. [smaller = less $$ = better]
                              Try to keep them to what you use all the time and current projects.
                              Searches go faster on smaller drives too.
                              .
                              Last edited by PCBONEZ; 02-23-2012, 02:25 PM.
                              Mann-Made Global Warming.
                              - We should be more concerned about the Intellectual Climate.

                              -
                              Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

                              - Dr Seuss
                              -
                              You can teach a man to fish and feed him for life, but if he can't handle sushi you must also teach him to cook.
                              -

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

                                Originally posted by PCBONEZ View Post
                                [I picked up a 4-Port for $8 a couple weeks ago. That included shipping.]


                                .
                                Got one for $5, in person. No shipping required. Now what to do with it...

                                As for my 2 port ata-133 card, it was $12 shipped... not sure on the 3ware model, but since it has only 2 (not 4) ports, it uses a regular PCI slot (the 4 port ones had the PCI-X extension), making it a good fit for my file/print server based off an intel VC820... even with caviar blue drives (AV editon), I doubt the drives even come close to the bandwidth limits of the card (it is a mirrored array if it means anything)...
                                sigpic

                                (Insert witty quote here)

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

                                  Originally posted by ratdude747 View Post
                                  ... not sure on the 3ware model, but since it has only 2 (not 4) ports, it uses a regular PCI slot (the 4 port ones had the PCI-X extension), making it a good fit for my file/print server based off an intel VC820...
                                  Is probably 5000 or 7000 series.
                                  Can probably figure it out by looking up the chip on it with google.

                                  I'm not 100% sure but I think the 7000's were LBA 48-bit and the 5000 weren't.
                                  .
                                  Last edited by PCBONEZ; 02-23-2012, 02:30 PM.
                                  Mann-Made Global Warming.
                                  - We should be more concerned about the Intellectual Climate.

                                  -
                                  Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

                                  - Dr Seuss
                                  -
                                  You can teach a man to fish and feed him for life, but if he can't handle sushi you must also teach him to cook.
                                  -

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

                                    Originally posted by ratdude747 View Post
                                    ... even with caviar blue drives (AV editon), I doubt the drives even come close to the bandwidth limits of the card (it is a mirrored array if it means anything)...
                                    In a std PCI 32-bit slot you are limited to like 133MB/s on the BUS anyway [and that's shared] so there is no point in using RAID 0 or 10.
                                    .
                                    Mann-Made Global Warming.
                                    - We should be more concerned about the Intellectual Climate.

                                    -
                                    Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

                                    - Dr Seuss
                                    -
                                    You can teach a man to fish and feed him for life, but if he can't handle sushi you must also teach him to cook.
                                    -

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

                                      Originally posted by PCBONEZ View Post
                                      Also, I would stay away from the 'fancy' RAIDs and use RAID 1 and 10 depending on what it is.
                                      Stuff that's just archived can go on RAID 1.
                                      Stuff you are currently using and want to be fast I would use 500Gb drives [max] with no more that RAID 10.

                                      [I'm assuming the performance concern is about games.]
                                      There is no reason to keep games you haven't used in months on the fast drives.
                                      Same-same with back-up CD's, videos, the bills, credit report, old programs, picture archives, etc..
                                      The 'work horse' drives you use all the time are more likely to wear-out/fail. [smaller = less $$ = better]
                                      Try to keep them to what you use all the time and current projects.
                                      Searches go faster on smaller drives too.
                                      .
                                      actually, its about storage performance. My gaming box has 2x 300GB VelociRaptors intel raid 1 (ICH10R) for OS and basic documents, and 2x500GB WD RE3's in raid 1 on the same chipset for games

                                      No, this is for massive storage. Right now I have 2x1TB black in linux raid on a PE 1800 for all other storage. I actually have my win7 downloads folder assigned to a mapped drive. I have all my downloads from firefox, downloads from torrents, an image of my old HD, and some video editing things (source files and videos for projects made with pinnacle studio 12/14)

                                      I also have a public read-only shared folder for hosting files that I need to do when fixing peoples computer. All in all [attachment] is what I have left

                                      and thats WITH EXT3 COMPRESSION. I have probably about 1.2TB of data on that thing

                                      The picture has two mapped drives that show the same size cause they're different folders on the same volume. And I run out of space all the time!

                                      I LOVE how I can download any files off it at 70-90MB/s over my gigabit lan, and I hope to match or increase the speed at that

                                      if I can't beat the 2TB limit, I want

                                      Raid 1 2x1TB (current drives in my PE 1800) for downloads map
                                      Raid 10 4x1TB - Video Editing & video storage (media)
                                      raid 1 2x2TB for peoples backups (working on thier computers)
                                      raid 10 4x1TB for all other storage (tool storage, software storage, other things I want off my desktop)

                                      I want raid 10 on the media cause I will probably be editing projects off there live and need as much performance as possible

                                      so in the end, thats 12 drives (for a 15 drive array). I'll probably end up using blacks, not RE4's

                                      oh yes news otherwise. I went through my stuff and actually found an adaptec 2100S. Not sure if it will see 2TB (RAID logical) volumes off the vtrak, I will update to the latest firmware and try. Also, my PE 1800 actually came with a perc 4/DC. i'm going to see if this is one that can support SCSI luns over 2TB (logical from the vtrak)

                                      Logical Volume = Partition.

                                      The 2TB is using NTFS with the default 512 bit clusters and it limits *partition size*, not drive size.
                                      You can get 16TB partitions by using 4096 bit clusters.
                                      .
                                      Personally I can't see a reason to have partitions larger than 2TB anyway.
                                      Dumping everything into giant partitions makes finding things with an OS search utility take forever. - PITA.
                                      I'm talking about logical RAID CONTROLLER volumes. This is also why a lot of the dell PERC series raid cards will NOT let you create volumes over 2TB. I'm not sure if they just didn't want to risk having an OS that doesn't support large volumes and bitch to dell, or if there is another reason. I'm getting lots of conflicting research results with what you say. the OS in question will probably end up being Ubuntu 11.x.
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                                      Last edited by Uranium-235; 02-23-2012, 09:18 PM.
                                      Cap Datasheet Depot: http://www.paullinebarger.net/DS/
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                                        #20
                                        Re: SATA 300/600 drives on a 150 storage controller

                                        well after some more serious research, weighing in the cost factors. I'm almost tempted to just try to get some sata drives in my PE 1800

                                        the bad thing is, there is only two 5.25 bays for a hot swap bay

                                        and the scsi cage, though it can come out, the metal frame is built for HP's caddies. I know I had a poweredge 700 with a regular drive cage here, which is what I would want, but it seems they do not make them for the 1800 that i've found. I even looked up a replacement for the 700/800 series but they look too small. Dell does not make a sata/sas backplane for the 1800 so, thats out of the question

                                        so pretty much my only option here is to find 4 more caddies, and take the back plane off the scsi cage, and put a, probably a HBA card in there and use linux raid. Probably just going to use 2x2TB raid 1 arrays. I could easily get caddies here

                                        http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-PowerEd...-/200535220307
                                        Cap Datasheet Depot: http://www.paullinebarger.net/DS/
                                        ^If you have datasheets not listed PM me

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