Software raid or hardware (sort of) raid ?


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Thread: Software raid or hardware (sort of) raid ?

  1. #1
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    Software raid or hardware (sort of) raid ?

    Hi.

    I'm going to buy 4X750GB disks and configure them as a raid 5. I'm thinking of either getting a highpoint rocketraid 1720 card or running SW raid.

    I've read that the rocketraid isn't fully hardware raid and uses some main cpu power to work.

    SW raid feels more dynamic but does it require alot of system resources?

    So the question is, rocketraid or SW raid?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
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    Honestly, I would go one of two ways:

    1.) Spend a bit more and get yourself a kickin' RAID card. 3Ware comes to mind...

    2.) If cash is an issue, I would go the software raid route. Software RAID on Linux just provides you with much more options than a rocketraid card, plus, I'm willing to bet it provides better performance too.

  3. #3
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    I'm leaning towards SW raid. Feels more dynamic.

    I did a small sw raid test.

    I created 3 100mb loopback disks. Created a raid 5.
    The I put a dm-crypt volume on the whole raid (200mb)

    Then I failed 1 disk. No probs.
    Replaced it with a new one, No probs.

    Then I added a 4th disk and expanded the raid. And I expanded the encrypted fs (now 300mb), No probs.

    I then shut down the raid. Copied the disks to another machine.
    Assebled the raid, moundted the DM volume, NO PROBS.

    Feels promising.
    Last edited by greven79; 06-07-2007 at 02:00 PM.

  4. #4
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    Yeah, SW is great. When you OS blows up your data is almost completely useless.

    If you are going to use software RAID, put your data on a different array.


    Get a good RAID card. My 2 pennies.

    Soule
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  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by soulestream
    Yeah, SW is great. When you OS blows up your data is almost completely useless.
    Not if you have another copy of the same OS. Or a LiveCD with the same RAID driver on it.

    Get a good RAID card. My 2 pennies.
    And then when your RAID card blows up, you're completely hosed, because the only option is to buy a newer version card from the vendor, which doesn't support the old RAID disk layout anymore. Personally, I'd rather not do that. (This won't usually be a problem with RAID1, but for any other level it might.)

    (And note that when a hardware card changes its on-disk RAID format, there's no upgrade utility, because almost nobody upgrades their cards. If a kernel changes its format, there is an upgrade, because everyone upgrades their kernel. Or at least, almost all Linux users do. Windows' SW RAID (when it's supported) just never changes.)

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by soulestream
    Yeah, SW is great. When you OS blows up your data is almost completely useless.
    I moved my test raid to another computer and reassembled it without any probs.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    May 2007
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    I was facing the exact same problem a little while ago, wanted to use linux for the software raid and make a raid5 dataserver. Unforutnately, I havent had any linux experience, at least when it comes to managing a system, so I didnt feel confident enough in being able to make it work and keep it working without loosing data.

    I ended up getting a highpoint rocketraid 2310 and using that for my RAID5 array. You'll be able to tell by your pocketbook if your card does hardware raid or not. The cheap (~$100 ish) 4 port controllers are generally fakeraid, where as a good 8 port hardware card may be ~$400.

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