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I have been using nForce chipset's built-in IDE RAID for my desktop. Unfortunatey, they do not provide / support drivers for Linux and Tiger OSx. So, I thought of purchasing PCI RAID which is supported by most of them.

I learnt that 3ware and Adaptec are supported by most Operating systems. However, I cannot spend $300 for a PCI RAID card, especially when I am using it over a desktop.

After lurking over web, I bought a used Promise Fasttrak Tx2000 PCI raid controller over eBay for $28 including shipping & insurance. I don't think it's a bad deal as the brand new one with Free shipping was around $100. When I received the product, I backed up all my data to dvd media as Proise RAID cannot understand already existing on board IDE RAID settings.

The windows setup could NOT detect the settings and showed individual instead of RAID disk. In my next boot, I keyed F6 during the setup and loaded the drivers through floppy. Now the setup works like charm, showing single RAID disk. Once I am done with the Windows installation, I started with the OpenSuse 10.1 Installation.

The linux setup could NOT see RAID disk, just like Windows setup. I have loaded IDE drivers from Manual installation, however, later during the installation a screen showed that I had Software RAID and it cannot see a RAID disk. It also said that prior to linux kernel 2.4 these drivers used to work fine, but not anymore for linux kernel 2.6. I tested the same with the help of drivers from Promise support website. End result was same.

I googled for RAID drivers that work for linux kernel 2.6. But all my hours spend while searching went in vain. There are quiet alot of users who have been waiting, for more than an year, for Promise to release drivers for Linux Kernel 2.6. All the geeks out there have tried various ways and have mixed results in acheiving the ultimate goal. As I see the only reason, most of them could not get the drivers for linux kernel 2.6 is that Promise has access to partial source of the drivers compiled for linux kernel 2.4 and below.

Had the souce code been open, the open community members would have rolled the drivers for any and all versions long time back. With the closed source code, we are just depending one some a$$holes to build drivers for us. And the wait has passed an year. With the new RAID controllers rolling out every year, I don't think the support team will have time to revisit old product. On the top of it, when contacted the support, they suggest me to use 3ware products. Now, the situation is no worse than the Windows 98 users, who would not supported anymore. ( Microsoft ends support for Windows 98)

I also tested the same with OSx Tiger, and it shows individual drivers just like Linux and Windows. After going through this, I am started to hate the closed source communities. They are forcing us to purchase a new product by not supporting the old one. And we got to live with the what so ever product they offer with out any bells and whistles. I wish the older products should be made opensource, so that open community can support them. I don't think that's possible, that's why closed source is pain in that a$$.

Shyam K. Arjarapu