Promise Raid Chip Compatibility

Izemage

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Apr 9, 2006
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Heya..

Got a little problem with a fried mottherboard(Asus P4C800 E-Deluxe) that was having a onboard Sata Raid controller(Promise 20378 chip) which i was using for my raid-0 setup. The problem is the motherboard got fried about a week ago.

So my question is if its possible to use other(and if so, which?) raid chips while still keeping the data from the two Discs.. For that matter im barely surtain that it is possible with even the same chip cause as i remember it the firmware will reset TOC table when setting up the drives into raid. Perhaps any can enlighten me? been a long time since i set up any raid.. hehe

Thanks in anvance..

Klaus Jensen
 

modmandan

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Apr 2, 2006
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Heya..
So my question is if its possible to use other(and if so, which?) raid chips while still keeping the data from the two Discs.. For that matter im barely surtain that it is possible with even the same chip cause as i remember it the firmware will reset TOC table when setting up the drives into raid. Perhaps any can enlighten me? been a long time since i set up any raid.. hehe

Thanks in anvance..

Klaus Jensen

The only way to keep the data in tact would be to use either another mainboard with a built in promise raid controller or get a promise raid controller PCI card. The reason is that the RAID info (your correct here)is located on the drives themselves and normally can't migrate to another (non promise) controller.

The advantage to getting a Promise controller card would be that you could transfer that RAID setup to almost any other mainboard and only need to load board drivers without having to do a repair or full re-install.
 

Izemage

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Apr 9, 2006
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So all promise raid chips(be it onboard chips on on a PCI card) should be compatible with the 20378 chip ? Not knowing 100% how the TOC table etc work with raid i could imagine they would use different systems from the "cheap" onboard chips and the high end controllers..
 

modmandan

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Apr 2, 2006
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So all promise raid chips(be it onboard chips on on a PCI card) should be compatible with the 20378 chip ? Not knowing 100% how the TOC table etc work with raid i could imagine they would use different systems from the "cheap" onboard chips and the high end controllers..

I can't say their all compatible, but I had the exact same situation a couple of years ago and was able to transfer my raid to two other promise controllers without loss of data and was back up and running in no time. The 378 is a very popular promise chip and should be easy to find