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

[Derek Atkins]

Jarod Wilson <jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org> writes:

> 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.

Just for kicks, let's say "4-8 drives"

>> 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.

That's my thinking, too..  But because you can't have /boot on a
RAID5/6 the option there is to either have a secondary set of RAID1
partitions for /boot using S/W RAID or have a second set of small
drives for /boot.  I'm not sure what SOP is nowadays.

Like I said, my usage is an 8-core system (probably 2x AMD quad-core,
probably next spring) that's going to be a vmware host platform for a
few servers and a bunch of development VMs (like for gnucash
build/test platforms).

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

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord-DPNOqEs/LNQ at public.gmane.org                        PGP key available

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.