To "hardware" RAID 5 or software RAID 5

[David G. Miller]

Ubence Quevedo <r0d3nt at pacbell.net> wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> I am redoing my system and have three 250GB hard drives that I was  
> going to try and setup a raid 5 configuration with.  My motherboard  
> is a ASUS K8N4E-Deluxe with both nforce raid and silicon image raid.   
> My question is, would it be best to go with either of the "hardware"  
> raid solutions [I know it isn't truly hardware raid], or should I use  
> Fedora's built in software raid for what I want to accomplish.  I  
> can't afford an LSI or 3Ware raid card, or else I wouldn't be posting  
> this question.
>
> Has anyone had any problems/horror stories with these particular  
> hardware raid solutions I have mentioned?  On the other hand, has  
> anyone had any particularly bad experience with the Fedora software  
> raid?
>
> I haven't had a chance to look through the mailing list to see if  
> anyone has asked a similar question, so please don't flame me!
>
> Thanx, and I look forward to your responses!
>
> -Ubence
To answer your question with a question, why do you want RAID?  Are you 
looking for a system that can reboot even with a failed drive, more 
speed, or just security against hardware failure?  I run Linux software 
RAID-1 on my server and I can power down, pull a ribbon cable off of a 
drive and then power up with no problems.  Chances are the built-in RAID 
will give you redundancy if that's all you need.  It may or may not let 
you autonomously boot with a failed drive.

Perhaps someone else can chime in as to whether the hardware RAID you 
have is any faster than Linux software RAID.

Cheers,
Dave

-- 
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
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