Netcell s-cure as sata host controller?

nodle

nodle

[H]ard|Gawd
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Apr 9, 2001
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I have a PNY netcell raid card. Everything works just fine with it (currently running raid 3). I was considering moving towards WHS and was wondering if i could just attach my sata drives to it and use it just as a standard host controller for my WHS to see? Do you think this would work? I would like to use it because it has 5 sata ports on it, and that way i don't have to use my mainboard's sata ports. Think it would work?

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It would probably require drivers, but if you have them then yea, I am guessing that you could pop it in and WHS would be able to see the drives.

That is what you are after right?
 
Yes i don't really want to use the raid functionality of it, i just want to use it as individual drives. I know the cards is suppose to be driver less in windows also. On the box it says it supports raid 0/1/3 and jbod.
 
jcolby said:
It would probably require drivers, but if you have them then yea, I am guessing that you could pop it in and WHS would be able to see the drives.

That is what you are after right?
Click to expand...

No need for drivers. I used it for a couple of years, until one of the drives dropped out of the array. No utility to rebuild since I was on Vista. I tried an older firmware that had a rebuild function, but it didn't work for me.

I must say that the array was still fast with one of the drives as defunct, unlike my previous experience with the SX4000 from Promise.
 
I would also say that it probably requires drivers because WHS does not have all the same drivers built into the image as Server2K3 to make it a smaller disc image and install.

My question is what do you have against using the onboard sata ports?
 
nitrobass24 said:
I would also say that it probably requires drivers because WHS does not have all the same drivers built into the image as Server2K3 to make it a smaller disc image and install.

My question is what do you have against using the onboard sata ports?
Click to expand...

Nothing really, but i have about 9 drives that will be going in and my onboard only has 4 sata ports.
 
chewy2314 said:
No need for drivers. I used it for a couple of years, until one of the drives dropped out of the array. No utility to rebuild since I was on Vista. I tried an older firmware that had a rebuild function, but it didn't work for me.

I must say that the array was still fast with one of the drives as defunct, unlike my previous experience with the SX4000 from Promise.
Click to expand...

So do you think it would work without the raid functionality?
 
nitrobass24 said:
I would also say that it probably requires drivers because WHS does not have all the same drivers built into the image as Server2K3 to make it a smaller disc image and install.

My question is what do you have against using the onboard sata ports?
Click to expand...

No need for drivers. Just appears as a drive to the OS. Google netcell and you'll see.
 
Well thanks for the links, i guess i will know when my copy of WHS gets here lol.
 
did it work out for you?

I've got a netcell 5port controller which I just plugged into my linux server with the same intention, accessing single drives for building software raid.
Im using the pata_netcell driver included in the kernel (2.6.28) and it works fine for arrays which are created within controller bios. However, unassigned drives remain invisible in linux, so the controller does not seem suitable for accessing single drives (eg. software raid).

If anyone knows a way, please let me know..
 
Also, number of arrays is limited to two, so creating single drive arrays is no option.
Furthermore I couldn't find any utility to manage arrays within the OS, so even when using controller raid, drive failure would probably mean reboot, in order to assign new drive to the array using controller bios.
Smart capability is very limited, too.
 
I too am using NetCell RAID controllers. (in WHS, two 5-drive RAID-3 arrays)

Here's the "Unofficial NetCell Support Site":
http://home19.inet.tele.dk/amigay/Soft-Port/

He collected drivers, manuals, firmware, etc about the Netcell cards, and posted it for all of us to take advantage of. It's saved my butt a couple of times!

Awol
 
You know i never tried it, i ended up just getting a new mainboard with five sata ports on it, I am still interested though if it would have worked, it would be a cheap controller card if so.
 
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