RAID6? (was Re: Anyone Actually Using Virtual Linux Servers?)

[Jarod Wilson]

On Wednesday 12 September 2007 08:56:45 am Derek Atkins wrote:
> Jarod Wilson <jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org> writes:
> > On Tuesday 11 September 2007 03:00:18 pm Jack Coats wrote:
> >> Are there some RAID6 hardware (Adaptec or such) controller products
> >> that someone would recommend?
> >
> > 3ware's latest series can do hardware RAID6 with SATA or SAS drives.
> > Haven't actually used one of their RAID6-capable cards, but have used a
> > number of their earlier cards and like them quite a bit (I have a 3ware
> > 9500S-8 in my myth backend).
>
> Do you prefer a hardware RAID card over Linux S/W RAID?

Depends on the situation. In general, for a smaller disk count array (say <= 
4), I'm perfectly comfortable with software RAID. For larger disk count 
arrays, I feel more comfortable with hardware RAID.

> I would think that at least with S/W raid you could add disks or
> change the disk sizes to get additional space over time?

I do like the flexibility of software RAID, since I can mix different drive 
types and sizes and can do partition-based RAID instead of just the whole 
drive. But if I've got a nice stack of 8 matching drives of decent capacity 
and a hardware RAID card I can put 'em all on, I'll definitely go with that 
instead of software RAID, particularly if its got nice management utilities 
like the 3ware cards do.

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org

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