[K12OSN] Hard Drive Conundrum

["Terrell Prudé, Jr."]

Brian Chase wrote:

> Most likely, you're on a tight budget, and Raid 0/1 capable cards are 
> much cheaper.  For a low-end IDE RAID card I'd recommend the 3ware 
> 7006-2 with RAID 1 (mirrored).
>
>> http://www.3ware.com/products/parallel_ata.asp
>
>
>> http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RAID.html
>
>
>
>
> Jim Kronebusch wrote:
>
>>> what ide raid level would be best for both redundancy and 
>>> performance?  is that raid 0+1?  and would any raid controller do that?
>>>   
>>
>>
>> RAID 5 would be the best in my opinion.  But there is a cost factor
>> involved with that as well.  Most cards support 0 or 1 or 0+1.  If RAID
>> 5 takes your cost too high, then I would go 0+1.
>>
>> --- 
>

Another option would be some SATA drives in "JBOD" mode.  There are 
four-port controllers out there; I know that Highpoint's controllers 
work fine with the 2.6 kernel.  Then, just make a "Linux Kernel Software 
RAID" when you install K12LTSP.

As for those lower-end "hardware RAID" controllers, a lot of Googling 
and studying up on this very subject has revealed that these are in fact 
not "hardware RAID" at all.  You know how Winmodems and Winprinters have 
the actual intelligence as a large device driver for Windows that you 
have to load off the CD?  Well, these "hardware RAID" controllers work 
the same way.  They're actually doing it in software, using up your 
CPU.  Oh, and they're Windows-only.  This includes the integrated 
"hardware RAID" controllers build into most motherboards, including the 
ASUS A7V8X-E.  Since it's in software anyway, you'd do just as well to 
do your software RAID "the Linux way" and let the Linux kernel do it for 
you.

Do true hardware RAID controllers exist, that are supported by the Linux 
kernel?  Sure!  But you'll pay a lot more for 'em.

--TP