Question on ATA/133 - RAID

[emanon]

I recently purchased two Maxtor 160GB hard drive kits, one of which included the "Maxtor" (Promise) ATA/133 card which I believe I will need to get over the 137GB barrier. Here's my question:

I would like to install these drives as RAID 1. If I purchase an additional RAID controller card, will I run into any difficulties with the drives being over 137GB? If so, what else can I do?

Also...I recall sometime back, the ATA/100 Promise cards that Maxtor included were RAID-hackable. Any such luck with the 133's?

Thanks in advance!

 

[EeyoreX]

You only need[ an ATA100 card to support drives over 137GB. Many newer RAID cards support the ATA100 spec so you should have no trouble so long as you make sure to look to see that the RAID card supports at least ATA100 drives. ATA133 is basically a Maxtor marketing ploy and nothing more. There is no performance differance and there is no real need for ATA133. For example, Western Digital makes many drives over 137GB and not one drive that is ATA133. Western Digital drives are also benchmarked faster than comparable ATA133 Maxtor drives (though I tend to ignore benchmarks, and I can't tell the differance between the two. I have both).

So, again, just look for and get a RAID controller that supports at least ATA100 and you will be good to go. I have no idea if the controller that is included is "hackable"

\Dan

 

[Shooters]

The above statement is not completely correct. The ATA100 spec is pretty old and there are plenty of ATA100 controller cards that do not support 48-bit logical block addressing which is what is needed to recognize drives over 137GB. When you buy your RAID card just make sure that it supports 48-bit LBA and you will also need SP1 if you want Windows XP to be able to see the drive as greater than 137GB.

 

[EeyoreX]

You are correct, what is required is 48-bit Logical Block Addressing, and I neglected to mention this. I also neglected to mention that if a controller conforms to the specs (ATA/ATAPI-6, or Ultra DMA Mode 5 or Ultra DMA 100) , it must therefor support 48-bit LBA. Also, as a point of information, the spec was standardized in late 2002. While I suppose in computer terms that is old, I find that hard drive technology does not move so fast as other tech, say CPUs, so it really is not old at all.

here is the direct (out of the frame) link to the deffinition at StorageReview.com. Here is another link with the relevant information. These are two Google results I could actually grasp without too much technical jargon. But it seems clear to me that if the controller is following the specs, the controllers must allow for 48-bit LBA. If the controller doesn't conform to specs, that is a seperate issue. I have serious doubts that any of the major manufactures (ie, HighPoint, Promise) will release hardware that claims to follow the spec but in fact don't. I am still confident that if an ATA100 controller were to be purchased it would work flawlessly with the drives. I won't guarantee anything due to the vagrancies of differing hardware in different systems, but I'll say with 99% certainty my statement is correct that ATA100 controller will be sufficient.

\Dan

 

[emanon]

Got it - I just need to make sure the RAID controller I purchase has 48-bit LBA support. I've been eyeing up Promise Fasttrak 100 tx2, which conforms to these specs.

Thanks!