hw vs sw raid (was Re: [TriLUG] RAID newbie question...)

Roy Vestal rvestal at trilug.org
Mon Aug 4 15:21:12 EDT 2003


Crud, can you tell i have jet lag?  Let me rephrase:

IDE chain 1 = 2 drives - Master/Slaved
IDE chain 2 = 2 drives - Master/Slaved

RAID 1 = Chain 2 mirroring Chain 1

Correct?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roy Vestal" <rvestal at trilug.org>
To: <trilug at trilug.org>
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 3:18 PM
Subject: Re: hw vs sw raid (was Re: [TriLUG] RAID newbie question...)


> Question then,
>  I haven't setup software raid on IDE. I've only done this with SCSI
so...My
> question, I have a machine that will become my "server" and I want to raid
> the IDE's, I simply setup 2 on Chain one and 2 on Chain 2 and RAID 1 them
> (Chain 2 mirroring Chain 2)?
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mike Johnson" <mike at enoch.org>
> To: <trilug at trilug.org>
> Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 3:22 PM
> Subject: Re: hw vs sw raid (was Re: [TriLUG] RAID newbie question...)
>
> Jason Tower [jason at cerient.net] wrote:
>
> > true story: last year i was called in to fix a system that used software
> > raid 1 on a data partition (but not the other partitions).  one of the
> > disks had failed and the system would no longer boot.  i slapped a
> > knoppix cd in the drive, brought it up, mounted the remaining raid
> > partition, and scp'd the data to another system.  software raid 1 is a
> > good thing :-)
>
> This is an important point, that perhaps may have been missed.  With HW
> RAID, you're pretty much locked in.  If you HW RAID card dies (it
> sucks), you either swap in the spare that you had laying around, hope
> you can find a used one off eBay, or just kiss your data good-bye and
> head for the tapes.  There is no 'standard' for HW RAID data.  Every
> vendor (and oftentimes even within a vendor -- different products) has a
> different format for how they store their blocks.  For instance, if you
> have a HW RAID set up with 3Ware, you cannot use one of the Promise
> (yes, they make a -true- HW IDE RAID card) if the 3Ware dies.
>
> If you're using software RAID, you can move the drives around and still
> access them, or, as Jason did, even use knoppix.
>
> So, if you're looking for cheap, decent perfomance, just go software
> RAID.  There is a performance hit, but the cost and flexibility make up
> for it.
>
> Mike
> -- 
> "If life hands you lemons, YOU BLOW THOSE LEMONS TO BITS WITH
>  YOUR LASER CANNONS!" -- Brak
>
> GNUPG Key fingerprint = ACD2 2F2F C151 FB35 B3AF  C821 89C4 DF9A 5DDD 95D1
> GNUPG Key = http://www.enoch.org/mike/mike.pubkey.asc
>
> -- 
> TriLUG mailing list        : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug
> TriLUG Organizational FAQ  : http://trilug.org/faq/
> TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/
> TriLUG PGP Keyring         : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
>
>




More information about the TriLUG mailing list