[K12OSN] New Building's LTSP Server

[Terrell Prude' Jr.]

Jeff Siddall wrote:
> On 04/19/2011 12:47 AM, Terrell Prude' Jr. wrote:
>   
>>> Do you have a preference for hardware vs software SATA Raid?
>>>   
>>>       
>> Yes.  I prefer hardware RAID whenever possible.  There are two reasons. 
>> The first is that the work of maintaining the RAID falls to the RAID
>> card's processor instead of your CPU.  The second is that the RAID card
>> will abstract the array so that you don't need to worry about how to do
>> /boot, for example.  It's just easier, especially for the next person
>> coming in to maintain it.
>>     
>
> Except...  if you are using the "hardware" RAID built into your
> motherboard your drives may not work in another motherboard, so you have
> to think carefully about possible failure scenarios and recovery.
>
> Software RAID1 on the other hand will work on ANY hardware and you can
> boot off it also so there are no worries there.  Since there is no
> checksum to calculate there is no significant CPU load either.
>
> I have been using software RAID1 for the better part of a decade now
> with no issues.  Personally I would place more confidence in it than the
> RAID built into a MOBO but others may disagree.
>
> Also, like I said avoid RAID5 even if you have a real hardware
> controller.  The loss of performance and reliability is just not worth
> the savings given how large and cheap modern SATA drives are.
>   

No, I mean *real* hardware RAID, not that fake stuff built into so many 
motherboards (I'm with ya there).  I'm referring to stuff like the LSI 
Logic MegaRAID cards (except the 8200 and 9200 series), which perform 
pretty decently and are 100% supported by Free Software.  The MegaRAID 
150-6 remains one of my favorite SATA RAID cards to this day.

I am actually a fan of RAID 5 for a lot of situations, as I find it 
certainly fast enough for my purposes, plenty reliable, and very 
efficient with storage.  But a RAID 1 or even "RAID 10" setup, depending 
on the specific situation, would also work well.

--TP