SCSI vs ATA100 on 2.2.16-22 kernal

[Rasjid]

Work is considering using e-smith (www.esmith.com) instead of a NT
fileserver.

However, there are a couple of technical glitches, which I would like to
resolve quickly, as if it all gets too hard, NT may win by default.

The server concerned is a HP LH3000.  HP have Linux drivers for RH 7.0
(upon which the current version of e-smith is based), and I have worked
out how to hack the HP kernal module install script (you run it during
the install) to (most likely) get it to work with e-smith. Thus we could
use the built in NetRaid controler with SCSI drives.

This has a few drawbacks.
a) SCSI drives cost money (and lots of it)
b) I am about 95% confident that my hack will get the HP drivers to
work, but not 100% until I test with a real drive.  This is particularly
bad because of a).
c) E-smith may decide that installing the HP drivers void their support
and warranty.

I would like to suggest simply getting a couple of ATA 100 IDE drives
instead of SCSI. As far as I can tell from the HP website, the CD-Rom is
IDE, so there should be a couple of IDE ports on the motherboard.  The
machine is 'outdated' stock, so I'm not sure if it would be ATA 66 or
ATA 100.  Lets assume ATA 66.

What I'm wondering is, is there an easy way to get ATA 100 performance
from Linux using the 2.2 Kernal under the two possible scenarios:
a) Purchasing a PCI ATA 100 IDE controler card.
b) The motherboard has ATA 100 IDE ports (not likely, but possible).

I know Promise (www.promise.com) have ATA 100 controler cards, and they
even have a Linux support page on their website, but it is very poor.
Has anyone on the list had experience with either these or similar
cards?  Are there any (either by Promise or someone else) that are
automatically recognised by RedHat 7.0?

I had the motherboard ATA 100 support problem when I first got my
current home computer.  My solution was to use the ATA 66 ports until
RedHat 7.1 was released with the 2.4 kernal.  Unfortunately we do not
have the luxury of waiting until e-smith is released with the 2.4
kernal.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Rasjid.