IDE RAID is nice. I have spoken of its virtues on this blog before. It is cheap and it is not that much slower than SCSI. What it is NOT, is very compatible with stuff. Because of all the different versions of Linux (or so I guess) the new versions are not supported with any of the IDE RAID devices. I cannot get drivers for either the promise controller’s or the 3ware controllers. We have both. The newest we can get is Red Hat 8.0. our older IDE RAID systems can’t have anything newer than Red Hat 7.2 because the drivers will never be made for anything newer. On the flip side I can run Windows 2003 server on all but the oldest IDE RAID system. Those drivers are being made.
I can’t believe I am complaining about driver compatibility for Linux, but people can change. I mean these inexpensive solutions are perfect for linux. Linux doesn’t need a high end machine to run. It will work perfectly on a cheaper server with IDE drives, but the nice cheap $1500 servers we buy can’t run the latest version of Linux. You can’t win!
On a happier note we have a Linux System Administrator starting on Friday. He can help with our backlog of linux related projects. I have at least 8 at last count. But I keep remembering more. The only down side is I get tripled up in my office:( As I said before it is only temporary, or so we say.