Andrew Joakimsen wrote:
Anything beats the crap they call "MD-RAID."
That's FUD. Andrew, I know you know better. Software 'md' and BIOS 'dm' RAID work just as well as a hardware card with the added benefit that you are not locked into a propriety card. You lose the card, even if you don't lose all your data, if you can't get the exact model as a replacement -- very often you are hosed. As far as performance, software RAID is every bit as fast and there is no performance hit due to the RAID: RAID1 2 drives /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. The third drive /dev/sda is a stand-alone drive. All the drives are the exact same model, Seagate ST3500630AS drives. 22:18 ecstasy:~/tmp> cat /proc/partitions major minor #blocks name 8 0 488386584 sda 8 1 1 sda1 8 5 72229 sda5 8 6 2104483 sda6 8 7 20972826 sda7 8 8 465234336 sda8 8 16 488386584 sdb 8 17 1 sdb1 8 21 72229 sdb5 8 22 2104483 sdb6 8 23 20972826 sdb7 8 24 465234336 sdb8 8 32 488386584 sdc 8 33 20972826 sdc1 8 34 467411175 sdc2 253 0 488386583 dm-0 253 1 488384001 dm-1 253 2 72229 dm-2 253 3 2104483 dm-3 253 4 20972826 dm-4 253 5 465234336 dm-5 [22:41 ecstasy/home/david/tmp] # dmraid -r /dev/sdb: nvidia, "nvidia_fdaacfde", mirror, ok, 976773166 sectors, data@ 0 /dev/sda: nvidia, "nvidia_fdaacfde", mirror, ok, 976773166 sectors, data@ 0 [22:41 ecstasy/home/david/tmp] # dmraid -s *** Active Set name : nvidia_fdaacfde size : 976773120 stride : 128 type : mirror status : ok subsets: 0 devs : 2 spares : 0 22:17 ecstasy:~/tmp> for i in $(cat /proc/partitions | egrep sd[abc0]$ | cut -b 23-27); do sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/$i; done /dev/sda: Timing cached reads: 3770 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1885.09 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 210 MB in 3.02 seconds = 69.50 MB/sec /dev/sdb: Timing cached reads: 3622 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1811.38 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 214 MB in 3.02 seconds = 70.82 MB/sec /dev/sdc: Timing cached reads: 3762 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1881.23 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 230 MB in 3.01 seconds = 76.45 MB/sec RAID1 on 2 drives: /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. The third drive /dev/sdc is a stand-alone drive. All the drives are the exact same model, Seagate ST3500630AS drives. That's fake raid with $49 Seagate ST3500630AS drives on the stock SATA controller on a MSI K9 motherboard with openSuSE 11.0. There is absolutely nothing wrong with software raid at all. For my server setups, I prefer it. There is no reason for me to go spend $300 on a controller that isn't going to buy me any better performance. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. | openSoftware und SystemEntwicklung Rankin Law Firm, PLLC | Countdown for openSuSE 11.1 www.rankinlawfirm.com | http://counter.opensuse.org/11.1/small -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org