Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 09:36:20 +0200 From: Holger Kipp <holger.kipp@alogis.com> To: Phil Rosenthal <winter@villaweb.net> Cc: "Kenneth D. Merry" <ken@kdm.org>, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Hardware RAID vs vinum Message-ID: <3CF1E1F4.9D9C8C1D@alogis.com> References: <004701c20530$68e98a20$0700a8c0@zoom> <20020526230050.A8026@panzer.kdm.org>
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"Kenneth D. Merry" wrote: > > On Sun, May 26, 2002 at 23:41:39 -0400, Phil Rosenthal wrote: > > I've been using vinum for about a year now, and have been using it on some > > pretty large, heavily accessed RAID5 file system (500GB & 70MBits/sec > > constantly ). > > Is there any reason why a hardware raid would be better, am I missing out on > > anything? > > As someone else mentioned, CPU utilization, and possibly features, > depending on the RAID card. Nowadays, the CPU utilization might not be an argument for file servers, as they usually have no CPU utilization. For larger Database-applications I'd always recommend hardware raid, though, especially if using RAID 5 (don't use cheap cards without hardware RAID 5), to avoid cache poisoning. RAID solutions that only use RAID 0 and 1 don't require hardware raid IMHO, but for production use, hot spare support, rebuilding of array in background, etc. might be an issue. Use RAID 0+1 (10) for maximum performance ;-) With hardware raid, you're bound to one controller, though. With software raid, you can mirror across controllers etc. > > What hardware RAID cards are best under FreeBSD 4.6? IMHO the supported ones are a good choice ;-) > I would recommend an Adaptec 5400S. It has a hardware parity engine to > accelerate RAID-5 parity calculations, so writes will be faster than on a > RAID card without a parity engine. We use - 3ware Escalade 7850 If you need RAID 5, but want to use cheaper IDE hard disks. Otherwise, 7810 might do (no hardware raid 5 support). - AMI MegaRAID (Dell PERC 3) If you use a DELL server ;-) - Mylex AcceleRAID 352 No problems so far - but then, each is for different requirements, you better have a look at http://www.freebsd.org/releases/4.5R/hardware-i386.html and choose the one best suited for your requirements ;-) Regards, Holger -- Holger Kipp, Dipl.-Math., Systemadministrator | alogis AG Fon: +49 (0)30 / 43 65 8 - 114 | Berliner Strasse 26 Fax: +49 (0)30 / 43 65 8 - 214 | D-13507 Berlin Tegel email: holger.kipp@alogis.com | http://www.alogis.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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