I agree wholeheartedly with Joe, that RAID 1 is sufficient for your uses.  AND that the external enclosure using USB will also provide a good solution for non-enterprise systems.

<Mine also does the NO POST BTW>

I also always use Google to determine what will and won't work; reading for context.

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Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:37:28 -0700
From: joe@selectitaly.com
To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
Subject: Re: Looking For RAID Hardware/Software Advice

I'll chime in again to support that card. I've had drives on it fail twice and the card stayed online both times. I've read it's common for the module/kernel or the hardware to crash when a drive fails, but I've never experienced that with the TX4. The card stays online and mdadm sends me an email to let me know something bad happened. I will point out again, though, that the card has no RAID ability on its own, fake or otherwise. I just use mdadm soft RAID under Debian 4.0r2 Testing (installed a year or two ago) and it worked out of the box with no special effort.

As for checking Linux compatibility, I usually just read the reviews on Newegg. Most people will say something like "Works in Ubuntu" or "Works in Linux" or "Didn't work in Fedora" or whatever. If I don't see any reviews that say it worked in at least some flavor of Linux, I usually skip the hardware, unless it's something I really want, then I just Google it and see what comes up.

The external enclosure comment is also very valid. If you're looking for a nice enclosure, I'd recommend the Macally G-S350SUA. It's $40 shipped on newegg right now and has USB 2.0, Firewire 400 AND eSATA connections (and comes with all 3 cables). I've only ever used the USB port since my prehistoric box lacks any other interface, but it's been running quite well for the past couple of weeks. Only problem I've had is if it's plugged in but not powered on, my motherboard won't POST. I have no idea why, and simply turning it on solves the problem..... very strange. Anyway, it would allow you to use USB in RAID-1 now and switch to eSATA if you decide you need the throughput. Best of all, you could pull it off eSATA and put it on another machine with USB for recovery/backup/whatever. Keep in mind that USB will be slower than EIDE or SATA, but if you don't care about that, it's a useful alternative.

Lastly, Mark, as others have pointed out already and I'm sure you've gathered, you want RAID-1 (mirroring), not RAID10 (mirrored stripe). For your use, I wouldn't bother with RAID-5. I set mine up in that config because large drives used to be a lot more expensive and it was something fun to set up. For your needs, 2x500GB, 2x750GB or 2x1TB in a RAID-1 should do you just fine. Option B or C sound good to me.

Out of curiosity, what drives were you pricing?

-Joe

Mark Phillips wrote:
What controllers have you been pricing?  I'm planning a similar backup server for my home, and I'm not sure which to go with.
Joe Fleming, in an earlier post to this thread, uses this card on Debian:
Promise TX4 card (4 SATA-II ports on a normal PCI interface, $60 shipped on newegg).  It is still $60 at Newegg, and that is the one I priced.

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