On 2014-08-21, Valeri Galtsev galtsev@kicp.uchicago.edu wrote:
(And I do not include into hardware RAID these fake "raid" cards that rely on "driver" - which are indeed software RAID cards. 3ware never fell that low to make/sell any of such junk. Somebody who knows LSI better than I do will probably say the same about them).
LSI has owned 3ware for some time (who in turn were recently gobbled by some other company). The LSI MegaRAID cards are real hardware RAID. What I have heard, but only validated the former, is that the 3ware UI is simpler but the MegaRAID controllers are faster.
That being said, I do also like mdraid for certain purposes. I was able to successfully repurpose a very old controller in an old but nicely sized chassis (16 bays) by moving to an md RAID6 array, which the hardware controller doesn't support (I did say it's old). I also love the want_replacement feature in md RAID, a feature I don't believe is supported in the 3ware line (you can "rebuild" just one disk if it's bad but hasn't been kicked out of the array yet; that rebuild is much faster).
--keith