[conspire] (forw) Re: Fakeraid

[Rick Moen]

There's an interesting ongoing trend among hardware manufacturers, to
incorporate more and more low-end RAID functionality into either core
motherboard circuitry or cheap add-on cards.  Unfortunately, the
resulting RAID functions tend to be slow and buggy compared to Linux
"md" driver software RAID.  Caveat emptor.

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:35:10 -0700
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: Pekka Hellen <pekka at hellen.fi>
Subject: Re: Fakeraid

Quoting Pekka Hellen (pekka at hellen.fi):

> Im wondering that what is the situation with Silicon Image 4723, is that 
> fakeraid or not? :)
>
> btw great list you have there 
> http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html#fakeraid
> 
> Best regards
> Pekka Hellén
> Finland
> **

The 4723 appears to be genuine hardware RAID (albeit for RAID0 or RAID1
only), and is implemented as a port multiplier and RAID controller
add-on, that attaches to a SATA port, which is then for some reason
referred to as the "EZ-Backup" port, to which you can connect two SATA
drives.  Unfortunately, reports I hear suggest that it has very bad
performance.

My apologies for being a bit behind on maintenance of my SATA on Linux
page.  I've been away on vacation, and am just now returned.


----- End forwarded message -----