My LSI Megaraid 150-6 finally gave up while running. I guess it was the heat. Bios screen still pops up, but the Webios message does not appear and the system halts after "detecting" the drives. The controller is neither reachable through the Firmware upgrade, nor does Windows boot correctly even with the bios disabled.

 

I think about a few options listed here:

 

http://www.ebay.de/itm/LSI-3ware-9500S-4LP-4-port-SATA-RAID-0-1-10-5-JBOD-PCI-Arrays-2TB-/170781735833?pt=Controller&hash=item27c3627b99#ht_2398wt_1054

 

http://www.ebay.de/itm/AMCC-3Ware-9550SX-8LP-SATA-II-Raid-Controller-4-Sata-Kabel-/150819520811?pt=Controller&hash=item231d8b412b#ht_660wt_934

 

http://www.ebay.de/itm/BROADCOM-BC4452-SATA-Controller-4port-133MHz-PCI-X-/150817081968?pt=Controller&hash=item231d660a70#ht_4160wt_980

 

Anything above 50€ is financial out of the question at the moment...

 

Are LSI-generated Raids compatible with 3Ware controllers? Has anyone ever made any expierience with these PCI-X controllers?

Typically, hardware controllers do not understand configuration information from other controllers. This is a major reason why I strongly recommend home users avoid hardware RAID. In home usage the cards are often kept until death and that creates a problem. Software RAID will typically meet the needs of home usage and give much more flexibility when hardware fails.

 

As it turns out, I am moving a friends storage from the 150-6 to software RAID. I'll ask him if he would make it available to you.

Since you are posting on the UNRaid forum, I would assume you are running unraid...  If so, you should be able to replace the controller with anything else that unraid supports without issue.

 

Though if you are talking about a hardware raid array (not unraid), then c3 is completely correct.  You either have to replace the card with the same one (may be some wiggle room with different models by same vendor, but not sure), then migrate data off.  Or try a data recovery software that specifically supports raid data recovery...  Which works but you will probably have some data loss, when I had to do data recovery I found files years later that were corrupt, not many but they were there.

dandirk: Oh, i'm just posting here, because this seems to be the only really good forum about all kinds of NAS-related topics. I would like to use unraid. But the lack of Firmware-based disk access vs. driver based access in "older" controllers make it quite difficult in that case to find a proper controller if unraid doesn't have the proper driver... I'll wait until i switch to a PCI-Express based system.

 

C3: Thanks, I would really like to know that "wiggle room". Like if the Megaraid Sata 300-8x would be a possible upgrade. The thing here is not the Hardware raid itself, but a fast PCi-x sata controller. But most of them do not support standard harddisk-profiles. You have to put them in arrays and so on...which already cost me all the filetables when adding a drive to such a controller...

 

But it seems that controller was popular enough to get another one...

The questions asked were;

Are LSI-generated Raids compatible with 3Ware controllers? Has anyone ever made any expierience with these PCI-X controllers?

 

I see LSI-generated raids. I do NOT see unRAID.

 

I have confirmed the 150-6 is available for packaging and shipping costs to help you out of this mess PM if interested.

 

I would not expect the 300-8 to understand the config from the 150-6. Basically because the 150-6 is such a weak platform and controllers that followed got much better. For example 150-6 no 2+TB support, 300-8 >2TB supported, meaning the tables and pointers are bigger. Again I would strongly recommend you move to software RAID, available on linux, Windows, and OS X.

Yeah, i thought about software raid ever since i found out that it's a feature back in Mac OS X. But i really doubt that i will find a cheap PCI-X card for the mac, so mac os-x is out of the question, except if if ever get a Hackintosh system to work. Only diappointment on that side.

 

Also, BREAKING NEWS. The Mainboard's PCI-Bridge seems to be damaged. The machine doesn't find ANY PCI Card anymore, doesn't find the onboard Ethernet and hardly works with USB and has problems booting from the onboard SATA. I will try to get a new board soon.

 

Then i can think of backing up the data from the hardware raid and think of a better solution.

Yeah, i thought about software raid ever since i found out that it's a feature back in Mac OS X. But i really doubt that i will find a cheap PCI-X card for the mac, so mac os-x is out of the question, except if if ever get a Hackintosh system to work. Only diappointment on that side.

 

Also, BREAKING NEWS. The Mainboard's PCI-Bridge seems to be damaged. The machine doesn't find ANY PCI Card anymore, doesn't find the onboard Ethernet and hardly works with USB and has problems booting from the onboard SATA. I will try to get a new board soon.

 

Then i can think of backing up the data from the hardware raid and think of a better solution.

 

I realize the motherboard is basically dead, but pci cards do fit and operate in PCI-X slots, not PCIe or PCI Express. Monoprice has 4 port sata cards for under $20.

Yeah, i just pointed out the uselessness of the "upgrade" Macs got suddenly.

 

I might just try to get the data off the hardware raid and buy a pci-express sata card.