[ILUG] Linux & Adaptec 2820SA Raid Card

[Aine Douglas]

On 11/8/06, FRLinux <frlinux at gmail.com> wrote:
> We have a few, they are real nice. Thing I have against it is the fact
> that their monitoring software is provided as RPM only (at least the
> last time I checked) so my Debian systems weren't too happy about it
> (and Alien doesn't cut it since the postinst scripts aren't being
> executed). The monitoring on Linux does work on RPM based distros but
> I have no experience on it.

I'll be using SuSE, so I don't have an issue with that.

> The cards themselves do deliver the performances and behave well
> (using RAID10 here).

RAID10 is one of the standard modes... so that doesn't tell me if the
"advanced data protection suite" is firmware or software :-(

> We had a couple of dead SATA drives and replacing
> them was trivial (we can hot swap them with the units we are using,
> SuperMicro cases).

A "couple" of dead hard drives.... OUCH....

Heat is you enemy, esp if one goes bad and overheats, it's likely to
pollute the chassis temp and take more with it. Hard drives can
typically run at around 50 degrees, esp in laptops. They like, or are
designed to run at about 20 degrees. If you remove the labels,
sacrifice the hot swap caddies, and use peltier coolers you'll get
them to run at 5 degrees, plus you'll not have a polution problem if
one does overheat.

Have you looked into monitoring the hard drive temps with SMART?

Do the drives mount vertically or horizontally in your chasis, and
does anyone know if that actually makes a difference to how a drive
spins?

Aine.