Raid Card controller for FC System

[Albert Graham]

Joe Tseng wrote:
> I saw a few people respond with saying how hardware RAID is overkill 
> for home use.  I had the system drive in my RH9 RAID1 file server at 
> home die on me last year; although I got a new drive and FC6 
> recognised the RAID immediately I'm not sure whether my recovery was 
> due to software resilency or dumb luck.  I'm currently working on 
> gathering parts for a RAID5 file server as a replacement.
>
> 1) If a RAIDed drive dies in a soft RAID setup can I assume I can't do 
> a hotswap?
Don't assume in Linux, because usually anything is possible, it can be 
configured so you can hot swap.
> 2) If my system drive dies again would a new system recognize my RAID5 
> array?
Of course. (I assume you're not talking about a double fault here!, in 
which case you may well loose - see the benefits of raid 6 for this problem)
> 3) Does soft RAID5 compare favorably against hware RAID5?

Yes, but it depends on who you ask :) - for any given situation, there 
are many arguments, benchmarks to prove which is faster, however, when 
you have dedicated hardware (with the right drivers) designed to solve a 
specific problem you can "generally" assume it to be better "generally" 
- and this is the case with the link that I posted you - not trying to 
start a flame war!

Software raid does have advantages over hardware raid, for example, you 
can raid loop back devices and test things out without fear of loosing 
anything, you can create wide redundant arrays e.g. software raid over 
DRBD etc..

If boils down to two thing, 1) Money, 2) Your preference.

Now you either want to spend the time necessary to setup and understand  
software raid and its advantages / disadvantages or you want an easy life.

I've used both on many occasions, but I prefer a good hardware raid 
controller, I like the idea that data integrity does not rely on my 
personal "expertise" or access at the time shit hits the fan, so for 
example, if a disk fails I can call the data center and say unplug disk 
#2 and plug in the spare disk (assuming no hot spare) thank you boodbye, 
I can then head back to the beach :)

Now, I know in your case it is for home use, but hey the link I posted 
you was top of the range card for only $300 and it does what it says on 
the tin :)

On the other hand lots of people like getting something for free and 
software raid gives you that, but your subject was "Raid Card Controller 
for FC System" right ?

Albert.


>
> - Joe
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Albert Graham" <agraham at g-b.net>
> To: "For users of Fedora" <fedora-list at redhat.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 1:18 PM
> Subject: Re: Raid Card controller for FC System
>
>
>> Most modern motherboards will all you to have 4 or 6 SATA drives 
>> connected, so the cheap solution is to use Linux software raid, 
>> that's the best bang for your buck you're gonna get :) 
>