On 2008/09/21 11:34 (GMT+0200) Carlos E. R. composed:
The Saturday 2008-09-20 at 22:36 -0500, David C. Rankin wrote:
The Saturday 2008-09-20 at 19:51 -0400, Felix Miata wrote:
If you have a RAID1 BIOS built into the motherboard, are there any reasons not to use it, as opposed to just using pure software RAID1?
I could name a lot of reasons :-p
Like bios raid not being real hardware raid,
This matters why?
Dunno, I have 3 bios fake raid0(s) and 2 software raid0 system. Can't tell any difference except I have to type mdxxx for some stuff on software raid and dmxxx on the bios raid setups. The bios raid just lets me rebuild an array before the OS boots, other than that, I understood that bios raid was simply software raid anyway.
Exactly, this is why. Real hardware raid is faster, there is no intervention from the cpu. All is done by the card hardware.
No one was disputing the superiority of hardware RAID over software RAID, but hardware RAID was not among the options being compared.
Therefore
HWR not relevant, so nothing can flow from the point.
if all I'm going to get is a fake raid, I prefer real software that I have control of.
And BIOS RAID1 provides no control? Every RAID BIOS setup utility I've opened seems to provide quite a bit of control, and is quick and easy to get into, unlike waiting more than a minute to get an OS booted that expects the HDs to already be configured.
not portable,
Portable to what? Why is not portable a problem?
I haven't figured this one out either. I can pull a bios raid drive and put it in another machine and read it just fine... I've never tried to move a whole array from one box to another though. Maybe this is where the portability issue creeps in. If so, I'll never notice it.
Non portable means that if your mobo dies, you can not put your raid into a mobo of a different make. You need one with the same type of bios raid.
By definition, we are only talking simple RAID mirroring here. I don't see how anyone wouldn't be able to put a pair of disks in another machine, and use the built in setup program to choose re-make mirror set from the disks provided.
less flexible.
How?
Waiting on answer...
Less options. Less repair tools. Less choices of how to setup the array.
For instance, with software raid you can have different disks (sizes, makes, speeds, partitions...)
Maybe since you're so strong on software RAID you don't even know these things might exist in BIOS RAID1? I don't see how a different speed or brand could matter, and I know that normally having disks of different size means the size of the RAID1 will be limited to the size of the smaller disk. As to any option to have different partitioning, I don't see how that could or should be reason enough to prefer pure software to the simplicity of BIOS management and failed device replacement. RAID1 really doesn't seem to me to require any setup complexity at all. -- "Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain." Psalm 127:1 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org