->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Richard Mixon (qwest)" (rnmixon@qwest.net) wrote: ---------- [...] 3) It sounds like this is an software/BIOS raid adapter (e.g. promise, SI, highpoint, etc.), not a true hardware raid with XOR processor and RAM cache onboard. Some of them do have good linux drivers, but many are troublesome. From the BIOS it will appear the RAID volume is configured, but without the correct/working drivers (usually from the manufacturer, not SuSE) it will appear as two drives. Of course their Windows drivers work much better for some reason :( [...] <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<- Yes; It sounds that Promise, Highpoint, Silicon Image, GigaRAID,... are all firmware raid controllers. When the OS loads and overrides controller's bios with its own driver, you have exactly pure software raid! The only difference with formal software raid is that the array is managed by the driver, not by the OS kernel. Can you mention any true hardware raid chipsets? I believe with a true hw raid adaptor, the individual disks should be totally hidden for the OS; Am I correct? ->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> [...] 5) If none of the above works then use the Yast partitioning utility to partition the drives and mirror them as RAID 1 using software RAID. It will probably be somewhat faster than the builtin RAID chip, though not quite as convenient (IMHO - others can give you hundreds of reasons why software RAID is really better :). [...] <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<- Is "being faster" due to the fact that sw raid uses kernel optimizations while builtin raid uses driver optimizations? Thank you for your notice, Bahram Alinezhad, Rudehen, Tehran, Iran. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com