Adaptec WinRAID (was RE: [wplug] GRUB won't update MBR)

[Alexandros Papadopoulos]

On Friday 08 August 2003 10:20, Vanco, Donald wrote:
> Alexandros Papadopoulos wrote:
> > On Tuesday 05 August 2003 21:08, Alexandros Papadopoulos wrote:
> > <snip>
> >
> >> It seems that the Adaptec controller I got is working on a Winmodem
> >> principal, replying on software to make it work... software that is
> >> only available for M$ products.
> >>
> >> I shouldn't even be seeing /dev/hde and /dev/hdg after "creating the
> >> array" in the controller's BIOS utility, but I am still seeing two
> >> separate disks. The quotes are there because obviously the hardware
> >> can do nothing on its own, and it relies on a M$-Win driver to
> >> mirror the data. After win-modems and win-printers, we're getting
> >> win-@&%#%@!!&-controllers...
> >>
> >> For the record, the controller is an Adaptec ATA RAID 1200A - two
> >> channels, RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and hot-spare capabilities. I'll officially
> >> ask Adaptec support tomorrow from work, and will let you know what
> >> happens.
> >
> > It's official. This controller is not "supported under Linux", and
> > Adaptec support have to say that "It's not a matter of
> > software/hardware controller,
> > it's just that this controller doesn't have drivers for Linux."
> >
> > Am I wrong in feeling tricked here?
>
> 	Disappointed certainly - but "ticked" - well, to play devils'
> advocate investigation before purchase would have saved you this grief.
> Like you, I personally was not aware of the increasing prevalence of
> "WinPuter" style chipsets (not really clear from the above statement as to
> whether or not this thing _is_ software driven) until I started looking at
> laptops and asking what worked under Linux and what did not.  There are
> entire laptops that are XP only (thank you SiS).

Reading the specs didn't help me much. Sure, it did mention only M$ stuff 
under "supported operating systems", but that's a standard disclaimer for any 
device out there (printers, modems, scanners etc). Besides, it had some silly 
software with it, so that M$ users could see a nice icon on their tray, that 
would reassure them that the array was alive and well. So I assumed that the 
"Windows only" clause applied to that valuable application.

BUT, this controller does *nothing*. Since it depends on OS-level software to 
work, what's the benefit against software RAID? Where do the advantages of 
hardware RAID controllers go?

- The ability to duplicate a boot/root disk and just boot your OS without it 
realizing that anything changed, is gone. In my case, I had an existing 
server, that I needed to migrate to RAID-1. I wanted the thing to boot from 
an array. I didn't want to juggle around with my data. I just wanted to 
poweroff, add another disk, create the mirror, and then poweron. This is how 
other cards I've tried (ACARD) worked. With Adaptec's current "solution", 
this would be impossible, or at least extremely cumbersome, because the OS 
would have knowledge of the extra disk, and then supposedly it would load the 
driver and the disk would magically disappear.

- Also, if you need a driver to control the array, if the OS-level software 
panics, so does your data.

So now I just do software RAID with raidtools and I'm getting exactly the same 
benefits that this "controller" would give me.

I don't get it. Is there a single benefit (beyond extra IDE channels) that 
this thing adds to my system?

As for the general rationale of centralizing processing - I believe it's so 
flawed that manufacturers could not possibly be choosing this willingly. I 
think it's a monopolistic power issue.

After all these years of experience in the computing world, I don't think 
there's anyone in their right minds that will claim that a centralized system 
(everything done in one place) is more robust/reliable than a distributed 
system (many little tools doing their special tasks).

So I don't think this win-devices trend makes any sense (other than as a 
monopolistic tool, of course)

Oh well, at least software RAID is very simple to setup. (for non-root 
devices)

-A
-- 
http://andrew.cmu.edu/~apapadop/pub_key.asc
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