RAID compatibility

[SmokeRings]

My moboard died recently and had a highpoint 372 raid controller on it. To retrieve the data on the disks do I need to:
A) Buy another mobo of the exact same make
B) Buy another mobo with the same raid controller
C) Buy a RocketRAID 133 with the 372A controller
D) Use any raid controller that supports RAID 0 at the data cluster size I used (I wish I could remember... think I used 4kb clusters)

I read on the webpage that you need the same motherboard< but it seems to make more sense that you would just need tha same raid chipset. I originally thought that any raid controller should be able to recognize it (if support for the cluster size is present.) The RocketRAID 133 card is about $70-80, and another mobo with the 372 chipset costs about $80-100. Also, anyone know of a cheaper board with the 372 chipset (socket A, DDR)? Thanks for any help guys!

-SmokeRings

 

[HammerBot]

This is a difficult question which I'm not 100% certain at. However, Highpoint does warn about the validity of the array when updating the RAID controller bios. This leads me to believe (and I have found nothing that proves otherwise) that details on how data actually is stored on the drives is controller and firmware dependent.
This means that even if you use the same stripesize you may have problems if using another controller and/or firmware.
However, a successtory has recently been posted on this board. It involved upgrading of a Promise controller to another Promise controller but of a different type.

If you choose A), B) or C) you are almost 100% certain that you will be able to recover the data. There may be differences in controller BIOS version, but among the newer versions there are a high probability of them being compatiable.
D) will probably not work. (I assume you mean stripesize and not clustersize)

Sorry, I can't be of more help. This is an issue that also bothers me, and I would like to figure out more about these details. But currently this is all I know. Good luck.

<i><b>Engineering is the fine art of making what you want from things you can get</b></i>
<A HREF="http://www.btvillarin.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=655" target="_new">My systems</A>

 

[khha4113]

<b><font color=red>A</b></font color=red>, <b><font color=red>B</b></font color=red> and <b><font color=red>D</b></font color=red> should let you have the same RAID setup as the old one. That was what I did when I changed from Promise controller (Asus A7V133) to Highpoint <b><font color=blue>370</b></font color=blue> (Abit KG7-RAID) and finally to <b><font color=blue>HP372</b></font color=blue> on Abit KX7-333R without re-setup RAID array (2 of IBM 60GXP 40GB).
<b>Note</b>
Remember to keep them on the same channel as the old one or the controller won't recognize it.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[HammerBot]

Thanks for that info. This is the first time I heard of a succesfull migration from promise to highpoint. For completion, what bios version(s) where you using?

<i><b>Engineering is the fine art of making what you want from things you can get</b></i>
<A HREF="http://www.btvillarin.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=655" target="_new">My systems</A>

 

[khha4113]

Asus AV7-133 I believe it was 1006 (I don't use it anymore)
Abit KG7-RAID version 768
Abit KX7-333R 1st release (I haven't updated its BIOS since buying it)

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.