NASLite Network Attached Storage

Just wanted to know if this card will ever be supported? I downloaded ver2.02 of NasLite-2USB and while it sees that there are drives connected, I cannot modify or access the RAID - the option is marked with and asterisk (*) and cannot select it.

Can I expect support for it?

If it is a hardware RAID card then you would use the cards BIOS utility to set up the array, this wouldn't be done within NASLite.

Mike

I just bought a TX-4310 with the aim of using it in Raid 5 mode with Naslite-2. I expected the bios on the Raid card took care of building and rebuilding the raid, but it appears the card has drivers that need to be installed under windows or linux.

Does anyone know if Naslite-2 will happily treat the Raid card as a single disk without these drivers?

If not, can the drivers be loaded on top of Naslite-2?

If Naslite-2 can drive the Raid as a single disk, but can't load the Promise drivers, how do you go about rebuilding the Raid?

Regards,

David

Just got Naslite-2 configured properly (had to buy a new FDD....), and it is not finding the Promise card at all. Any suggestions? Bios perhaps?

David

I believe that card is a software RAID card. If so NASLite wont support it.

I think you are having difficulty with it because your card supports 3 Gb/s SATA drives. AFAIK, most chipsets that do this (like my ICH8) don't have support built into the linux kernel source which is what is used by NASLite (see the post here).

If the model number also reflects which chipset it is, it definitely isn't on the supported hardware list (I looked quickly at Promise's site but did not see a specific reference to the chipset.).

http://www.promise.com/product/product_ ... uct_id=165



NASLite does not support software RAID as they are not proper RAID cards and rely on the OS and some trickery to mimic hardware RAID

I was looking at the it is not finding the Promise card at all part.

Even if the RAID functionality isn't suported, if NASLite saw the card wouldn't you be able to use the drives individually? Although, that is probably an expensive alternative to a lot of cards out there.

I would have thought the best you could hope for is it being seen as standard SATA controller card of a few ports i.e. not RAID at all.

I have a software RAID card and thats exactly what happens to me (although i have had no end of problems with it)

Im no expert here though so don't assume i am correct

Im no expert here though so don't assume i am correct

Same here. I just had a crash course in the SATA 3 Gb/s isse over the past few days

I wouldn't quite put it that way - it appears to me that NASLite does not support these "fakeRAID" cards as they are called, because it does not have the required drivers.

When using the Promise RAID cards with "software engines" along with a few other similar products, I have found that the OS is just as ignorant of the disk infrastructure as when true hardware RAID is used.

As with true hardware RAID, the "fakeRAID" card and it's drivers completely conceal the disk infrastructure from the operating system, so that the RAID array is presented as a single disk - I call this "driver based RAID" to differentiate it from what I call "OS based RAID" where the operating system is aware of the fact that there are multiple physical disks, and the operating system is responsible for creating the RAID array.

Whether your OS sees the disks as multiple physical disks or a single logical disk is dependent on the firmware on the card and the drivers - I have actually taken a Silicon Image 3112 based card and flashed the firmware to convert it from a standard 2-port SATA card to a "Sil 3112 SATARaid Controller" to prove this point.

With "OS based RAID" failure of a single physical disk can and frequently does cause untold grief with the replacement of the failed disk, wheras, at least in my experience, the replacement of a failed disk in a "driver based RAID" or "fakeRAID" array is no different to that of true hardware RAID - depending on whether or not your hardware supports hotswap - just pull the drive, replace with a new one and watch it rebuild, or, shutdown, remove the drive, replace with a new one, reboot and rebuild.

The significant difference between true hardware RAID and "driver based RAID" or "fakeRAID", once your OS has the requisite drivers, is that true hardware RAID, because it has a dedicated processor, gives better performance.

Thanks fordem ! Love this not-quite-laymen's but simplified explanation. And so ... (like I should have been able to figure this all out by myself ) that explains the significant price jump in the large variety of RAID cards out there (the ones with their own processor ...)

Georg

Thanks fordem, what you say makes sense. It appears Promise keep the price down by doing much/all of the raid work in the sw driver - hence fakeraid. I guess those drivers aren't likely to turn up in Naslite-2 any time soon, so looks like I need to go with Windows or RHEL4/CentOs if I want to get raid 5 happening with this card. Thanks again!