From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Mar 10 19:30:10 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 16C2737B401 for ; Mon, 10 Mar 2003 19:30:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from toscano.org (ip68-100-184-64.nv.nv.cox.net [68.100.184.64]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DBC5143F85 for ; Mon, 10 Mar 2003 19:30:07 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from pete@toscano.org) Received: from bubba.toscano.org (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by bubba.toscano.org (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id h2B3Rdoi002053; Mon, 10 Mar 2003 22:27:39 -0500 Received: (from pete@localhost) by bubba.toscano.org (8.12.8/8.12.5/Submit) id h2B3Rcqw002051; Mon, 10 Mar 2003 22:27:38 -0500 Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 22:27:38 -0500 From: Pete To: Chuck Swiger Cc: freebsd Questions Subject: Re: Difference between Vinum and atacontrol RAID? Message-ID: <20030311032738.GB1912@bubba.toscano.org> Mail-Followup-To: Chuck Swiger , freebsd Questions References: <20030309233502.GC1899@bubba.toscano.org> <3E6BE734.4040804@mac.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <3E6BE734.4040804@mac.com> X-Unexpected: The Spanish Inquisition User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.3i Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sun, 09 Mar 2003, Chuck Swiger wrote: > The ATA RAID support via atacontrol apparently requires hardware RAID > controllers like the Promise or Highpoint devices. I don't think this is right. The RAID-1 volume I'm using right now is with two drives attached to a non-RAID card with a Promise chipset. I also get the impression -- though can't test it right now -- that the atacrontrol-based RAID will work across cards. Anyone know for sure about this? > Hardware based RAID is likely to be faster, particularly in the case > of parity calculations for RAID-5. (Not that many IDE controllers can > do RAID-5, but...) It would be, but the RAID on the Promise and Highpoint devices is not true hardware RAID. It's just software RAID with the drivers moved over to an EPROM on the card. I know from my own experience and that of other people that the Linux software RAID outperforms the "hardware" RAID of these devices. I'm willing to bet that the FreeBSD RAID at least comes close, if not betters the Linux performance. Thanks, pete To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message