[TriLUG] Ubuntu FakeRAID or Software

[Jimmy Dorff]

On 11/03/2010 09:51 PM, John Brier wrote:
> The advantage of Linux MD (Multi Device) RAID is that it will work on
> any machine with Linux installed. Fake Raid will only work on systems
> with the same Intel fakeraid chip.. so if your motherboard ever dies
> your raid is unusable until you get another motherboard with the same
> chip. With linux software raid you can take the array and hook it up
> to prety much any machine with a linux distro and it should detect it
> or at least allow you to activate it or recover it.

This is a very important point. I've found Linux MD to be much more 
flexible and easier to repair. Also, the format of your data on disk 
isn't in a proprietary vendor format.


> I don't know what happened with your colleagues, but I have used Linux
> MD RAID on two different machines in RAID 5 setups for my file servers
> for two years with no problems.

We have our most critical systems using MD raid and have for many years. 
The only issues I have seen are with MD raided root and getting grub all 
happy after a disk failure / replacement.

Cheers,
Jimmy