[K12OSN] Hard Drive Upgrade Quandary

Sat Nov 27 01:45:20 UTC 2004

Hey--be nice.  If you need clarification on something, then ask for 
clarification.  But that kind of response wasn't called for.

Let's keep it civil.

--TP

Brian Chase wrote:

> Mr. Meyers experience with Linux and setting up RAID is lacking in his 
> email.  Do we want to listen to him?
>
> Anyone can read articles that might be slanted to begin with.  Only 
> the folks that have hands-on experience can offer advice from a more 
> practical perspective.
>
> Who would you believe, someone who has done it, or someone who reads 
> alot of tech articles?  Your choice.....
>
>
> Ken Meyer wrote:
>
>>Mr. Linux Bigot (that's not a unique identifier around here) --
>>
>>I recommend that you search the archives of this group for further
>>information about this subject, which is one of those periodically appearing
>>ones.  A couple of previous items:
>>
>>www.storagereview.com maintains that there is very little performance
>>benefit in striping drives (RAID 0), but of course, you multiply the
>>jeopardy of a failure that will take you down by the number of drives
>>striped-across.  Others have said that the performance enhancement is
>>greater -- but, Bottom Line, caveat emptor.
>>
>>Of course, the mirroring helps the reliability aspect, but if you are into
>>four drives, why not go for RAID 5, which as I understand it, will only cost
>>you one drive's worth of overhead?
>>
>>Chris Kacoroski has done experiments (results in the archives) and has found
>>that the 3Ware RAID boards do well for large file transfers, but have real
>>performance problems handling small, random file transfers as the thin
>>client solution will create.  Apparently, he even involved the 3Ware folks
>>in trouble-shooting.  Perhaps they have been able to address the problem
>>since then, but as I recall, Chris has another recommendation for RAID
>>controllers for use in LTSP systems.  Again, caveat emptor.
>>
>>Ken Meyer
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>
>>From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-bounces at redhat.com]On
>>Behalf Of Calvin Dodge
>>Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 9:31 AM
>>To: Support list for opensource software in schools.
>>
>>Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Hard Drive Upgrade Quandry
>>
>>Liam Marshall wrote:
>>  
>>
>>>I would like to get a Promise IDE raid controller, either the 4 or 6
>>>    
>>>
>>
>>Make sure it's compatible with a stock Linux kernel.  Typically, the
>>low-priced
>>RAID controllers are software-based (the driver hides this fact from the
>>operating system), and sometimes the drivers are provided in binary-only
>>format
>>(like the Promise controller at one customer's location, which provided
>>modules
>>only for kernels from RH 7.2).  You're really best off with a card with
>>open-source drivers (like 3Ware, though I suspect that's out of your price
>>range).
>>
>>  
>>
>>>channel version, haven't decided yet.  I was going to put on it 4 - 80
>>>GB EIDE hard drives with 7200 rpm and 8MB cache each.  I would use these
>>>in a raid 0+1 or raid 1+0 configuration.  It is my understanding that
>>>this will give me the best of both mirroring for redundancy, and
>>>parity/spanning for performance.
>>>    
>>>
>>
>>Yes, although 2 80 gig drives cost quite a bit more than 1 160 gig drive.
>>
>>  
>>
>>>If I am right in my understanding of raid levels 4 - 80GB drives in such
>>>a configuration will give me 160GB of storage space, with the other
>>>160GB of the drives being used in a mirrored capacity right?
>>>    
>>>
>>
>>Yes.
>>
>>Calvin
>>--
>>Calvin Dodge
>>Certified Linux Bigot (tm)
>>http://www.caldodge.fpcc.net
>>
>>
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>>https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn
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>>  
>>
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