SCSI question

I have found a few controllers that are OEM LSI MegaRAID 320-2E, and they do support PCI Express 2.5 GHz x8 link for 2 GB/sec peak simplex or 4 GB/sec peak dual simplex bandwidth. I'm not sure if it is compatibe with xp (looking for specification of it now).
 
mikka84 said:
I have found a few controllers that are OEM LSI MegaRAID 320-2E, and they do support PCI Express 2.5 GHz x8 link for 2 GB/sec peak simplex or 4 GB/sec peak dual simplex bandwidth. I'm not sure if it is compatibe with xp (looking for specification of it now).
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Theres XP drivers on the LSI site. From an OS point of view they are almost identical, use the same management software etc.

http://www.lsilogic.com/storage_home/products_home/internal_raid/megaraid_scsi/megaraid_scsi_3202e/index.html?remote=1&locale=E
 
So i should go with 320-2E not 320-2x then ? I'm not a vista fan tbh, got one running on my laptop and its somewhat buggy, gonna stick with XP till they release SP1 for vista. Which mobo should I go with to support this LSI logic card (p5n-e asus got pci exprecc, is that gonna be enough?)? Does it matter if its DELL branded or original LSI?
 
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Look's pukka :)
You may have to reflash the card with the official LSI firmware rather than Dell's for XP to be happy with it, but thats easy enough, much like flashing a BIOS from a floppy. Put the LSI drivers on a floppy or slipstream them onto your install CD, press F6 at the start of the setup and select the right card, and you can finish the setup like usual.
 
Cheers, hopefully that will work out fine (a bit nervous getting sum of those items from US). Do you play bf2 a lot? we could arrange to meet sumtime on battlefield :D


oh yeah, is asus p5n-e compatible with lsi mega raid 320-2x? it does have PCI express slots, but a bit uncertain
 
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mikka84 said:
Do you play bf2 a lot? we could arrange to meet sumtime on battlefield :D
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Most days ;)

mikka84 said:
oh yeah, is asus p5n-e compatible with lsi mega raid 320-2x? it does have PCI express slots, but a bit uncertain
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You mean the 320-2E? (PCI express version). It should work fine in one of the 16x slots, which means you'd have to run both slots at 8x. I've never tried a 320-2E in a desktop board so I can't say for sure. I'd try one of the dell cards at work in my dell desktop but I can't find my trusty Matrox Millenium PCI card for video anywhere :( (only have one 16x PCIe in my asshat Dell Dimension at work)

320-2X will work in a standard PCI slot, but it'll be slow. In the class of 'slow' worse than onboard SATA RAID.
 
grrr. right, I'm confused now, went to that popular auction site and searched for 320-2x, came up with a card that says its pci-express and does 133mhz on a 64 bit slot.

now i'm quoting you:
133MHz at 64bit means the card can do up to 1066MB/sec - plenty fast enough ... consider that standard PCI is 33MHz at 32bit. (post 18)

The way I understood is that card is the one im looking for (PCI-express fast scsi raid controller)

Here is a partial spec of it:
MegaRAID SCSI 320-2 - 2Ch, U320, PCI-X, 128MB
Part Number: 320X2128

Features

* One dual-channel LSI53C1030 Ultra320 SCSI controller
* IA-64 ready
* Intel® Xscale® IOP321 integrated I/O processor
* 64-bit, 133 MHz PCI-X
* PCI-X 1.0 compliant
* Microsoft® Cluster Server support
* Advanced management and configuration utilities
* Supports up to 40 logical drives per controller and 30 disk drives per array
* Auto resume during array reconstruction
* Background initialization for Quick RAID 5 setup
* FlexRAID®:
o Online capacity expansion
o Online RAID level migration

I thought thats what i need??
Im really confused now...
 
That's not the card you want, it's been incorrectly described as PCI-express.

PCI-X is not the same as PCIe.

You need a 320-2e which is the 8x PCIe version.
 
so is this desription sounds about right (it does say 320-2e):
Unsurpassed data throughput and advanced MegaRAID fault tolerance

Mid-range and enterprise class server platforms
LSI Logic MegaRAID SCSI 320-2E
Solution Provided Environment
Internal Connectors Two internal P68 connectors (HD)
External Connectors Two external P68 connectors (VHDC)
Battery Back-up Unit Intelligent Transportable Battery Backup Unit (order number LSI00009)
Processor Intel® IOP332
Device Support Up to 30 SCSI devices
Data Transfer Rates 640 MB/sec peak
Cache Memory 128MB ECC SDRAM DIMM
Bus Type PCI Express 2.5GHz, x8 link for 2GB/sec peak simplex or 4GB/sec peak dual-simplex bandwidth
Physical Dimensions Standard-height, half-length 6.875” x 4.2”
Operating Temperature 55°C (45°C w/BBU card)
Operating Voltage +3.3V
Warranty 3 years, free advanced technical support, advance replacement option
Regulatory Certification ETL, CE, FCC, CSA, C-tick, VCCI, BSMI and RRL
RAID Features • RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 10, and 50 • Online RAID level migration
• Online capacity expansion • 40 logical drives support
• Variable stripe size support • Auto resume on array reconstruction
• Fast initialization for quick array setup • Microsoft Cluster Server support (MSCS)
• Patrol Read • Configuration On Disk (COD)/NVRAM
• Temporary Offline • S.M.A.R.T. support
• Automatic rebuild of hot spare drives • SAF-TE enclosure management
RAID Management • Online Utilities: • Pre-Boot BIOS Utilities:
– Power Console Plus (GUI-based) – CTRL M (character-based)
– MegaManager (character-based) – CTRL H (browser-based)
OS Support • Microsoft™ Windows® XP/2000*/2003* • Red Hat® Linux®
• Novell® NetWare® • SuSE® Linux®/SLES
• SCO® UNIXWare • SCO® OpenServer
*Intel® EM64T and AMD64 instruction set ready
 
Yeah... be careful of that, demand pictures and product codes, not the sellers interpolated understanding of the specification :)

The person who sold me their 320-2X didn't appear to know the difference -

<me> It's PCI-X, right?
<seller> PCI express, yes.

:p
 
mikka84 said:
so is this desription sounds about right (it does say 320-2e):
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Yeah, sounds right

mikka84 said:
Bus Type PCI Express 2.5GHz, x8 link for 2GB/sec peak simplex or 4GB/sec peak dual-simplex bandwidth
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That's the important line. That card is PCIe.
 
matja said:
Yeah... be careful of that, demand pictures and product codes, not the sellers interpolated understanding of the specification :)

The person who sold me their 320-2X didn't appear to know the difference -

<me> It's PCI-X, right?
<seller> PCI express, yes.

:p
Click to expand...


lol, you got lucky i guess.

yeah the line
Bus Type PCI Express 2.5GHz, x8 link for 2GB/sec peak simplex or 4GB/sec peak dual-simplex bandwidth
does sound about right

theres another one that says:
PCI Express 2.5 GHz x8 link for 2 GB/sec peak simplex or 4 GB/sec peak dual simplex bandwidth
sounds about right too imho. thanx guys for that, that was a close one, almost bought the damn 2x.

btw matja in your sig it says 320-2x...how come?
 
so whats the average read speed to you get on 320-2x? if i get the same mobo like you do you reckon i will be able to run scsi raid with 320-2e?
 
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mikka84 said:
so whats the average read speed to you get on 320-2x?
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190MB/s at the start, 180MB/s at the end of the array.

mikka84 said:
if i get the same mobo like you do you reckon i will be able to run scsi raid with 320-2e?
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Sure, but then you'll effectively be wasting the two PCI-X slots (unless you have some other use for them?)

There's the ASUS P5W64 WS with 4 PCI-e 16x slots, but with varying lane widths (electrical) between them, not true 16x lanes per slot, and I'm not sure what the 320-2E explicitally requires in terms of lanes. I got burnt with this before running a Intel PRO/1000PT dual port network card in a 4x slot which was really only 1x - doesnt work.... it depends on the card.
 
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