David R. Meyer wrote:
>Good insight Ian...thanks.
>
>
>
>
>>-------- Original Message --------
>>Subject: Re: [SLUG] Is RAID worth doing?
>>From: "Ian C. Blenke" <ian@blenke.com>
>>Date: Thu, July 13, 2006 4:42 pm
>>To: slug@nks.net
>>
>>David R. Meyer wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>>From the standpoint of the customers I work with on a daily basis, I'd
>>>say about 80% are using HW RAID for the reasons listed above. Those
>>>with SW RAID who had experience with HW RAID preferred HW RAID. Never
>>>had someone tell me that they preferred SW RAID.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I prefer software RAID. Strongly.
>>
>>Cost is the primary motivation, followed closely by my like for lower
>>level software control of hardware.
>>
>>Hardware RAID _does_ make sense for customers with:
>>1. Deep pockets.
>>2. Love of hardware vendor reliance.
>>3. Need for low CPU overhead.
>>
>>When you're paying for Hardware RAID, you're usually paying for
>>redundantly built servers with high-cost SCSI/SAS drives (more platters,
>>lower bit densities, much better MTBF). When the hardware fails in some
>>obscure way, you call the vendor's tech in to fix it (and you're down in
>>the interim if you didn't architect your software to operate across
>>multiple servers in a redundant manner). If you have loads of cash
>>handy, you might have a cold/warm standby or some spare hardware to swap
>>out to get your expensive server back up and running.
>>
>>Commodity computing looks at the problem differently: if you architect
>>the software solution to a critical computing system in a way so that
>>all nodes are stateless (or otherwise replicated) so that any hardware
>>outages are transparent to the application users, you no longer need
>>expensive hardware. Plus, you have far more resource capacity to scale
>>your application per $ spent.
>>
>>You buy one big redundant server. I'll take 8 commodity PCs. I'll have
>>more space, more memory, and more raw CPU power, but I'll need to build
>>my software differently to take advantage of it.
>>
>>That's my take on hardware RAID. For that matter, that's my take on most
>>things hardware centric.
>>
>>A hardware solution to a problem is generally more expensive than a
>>software one. That is to say a hardware architected solution is usually
>>more expensive to a software architected one. It is usually cheaper to
>>throw commodify hardware with custom software at a problem rather than
>>build a unique piece of hardware to solve that particular problem.
>>
>>For a fun read, check out this blog post:
>>
>> http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan?entry=the_rise_of_the_general
>>
>>Custom ASICs are losing ground to more general software solutions to
>>problems, and that makes a software guy like me _very_ excited.
>>
>>It's all about living with the economics...
>>
>> - Ian C. Blenke <ian@blenke.com> http://ian.blenke.com
>>
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>>
>>
>
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After dealing with a M$ software server RAID 1... OS tanked with BSOD
(server 2000). Would have been annoying to recover encyrpted data...
fortunately had the data backed up on a USB HD.
RAID 1 controllers can run pretty high (especially SCSI), but many new
motherboards have RAID 1 built in to the SATA controllers.
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