RAID setup under LDL 2.1 (Iain Stevenson)

[Christopher Murtagh]

On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, Iain Stevenson wrote:
>wrt Christopher Murtagh's reply about software RAID reliability, I
>haven't seen any RAID errors logged since moving to software RAID so
>maybe the problems have been ironed out.

 I suppose should clarify my complaints I had with software RAID...

 When I was trying software RAID on a test machine, it was during the time
of YDL 1.2.1 (a while back). At the time, the raid-tools that shipped with
the OS were out of date, and the kernel support wasn't great. To make it
worse, every time I rebooted this machine (which was often, because I was
using it to test out new kernels, etc.) I would have about a 50/50 chance
if the RAID working or not, and I could never figure what was causing the
problem. Often a just reboot (or two, or three) would solve it, major
PITA.

 Anyway, since I switched to hardware RAID, I don't have to think about
it, *and* if/when I switch hardware or kernels, I don't have to worry
about some wonky software drivers or extra kernel modules. All my G4s see
is one big SCSI drive. This means that there are no CPU cycles wasted
calculating checksums/etc or looking out for failed drives.

 So, hardware RAID isn't for everyone as it still isn't cheap (but is
getting cheaper), but if you can afford it, and you *need* reliable,
robust and efficient RAID, it's well worth it.

Cheers,

Chris

-- 

Christopher Murtagh
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McGill University
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