Bryan, If my viewpoint is limited, I have within my email defined (to the best of my ability) the limits of my viewpoint. Use as you see fit. Take a big, fat, chill pill, and realize that you're amongst friends, eh? Where have I applied absolutes? Is it not true that hardware RAID "frequently" leaves you locked in? Not "ALWAYS" (which would be an "absolute") but frequently? "several vendors don't lock you in" doesn't sound much like "infrequent" to me. And, if performance isn't a big issue, why bother with HW RAID? There are many circumstances where data integrity is important, but a few hours of downtime won't kill anybody. I'm glad you like your 3ware card(s). But I've made stuff work and work well on 1/10 your price (where $100 includes the entire computer sans monitor) with software RAID. Spend your $100 however you like. I offer my opinion, and I offer clear qualifications on the scope of my opinions. If you're running Yahoo, $100 is not even on the radar. But, if you're running a server for a 6-man company, $100 can be the difference between gaining and losing a contract. So, get off your high horse, offer your endorsements of the 3ware cards to the rest of us, and relax already! -Ben PS: If my butt is on the line and it's located 1,000 miles away, I'm going to demand 24x7 "hot hands" at a high quality colo with qualified staff. (and I do currently) There are many things that can go wrong, only one of which is a HDD failure, and if a controller card is all you feel you can count on, may god have mercy on you and your clientelle! On Tuesday 25 October 2005 17:38, Bryan J. Smith wrote: > [ I really dislike these discussions because it is often > opinions that are based on limited viewpoints. I've used a > lot of software and hardware approaches over many different > platforms and many different systems, and what I repeatedly > see is absolutes applied when they are not applicable to many > vendors. ] > > Benjamin Smith <lists at benjamindsmith.com> wrote: > > I've not yet tried Software RAID 1 with Centos 4.x but I've > > done so with Fedora Core 1 / X86-32 so I'd assume that my > > comments would apply. > > Just be wary of changes in MD and/or LVM/LVM2. > > > I tend to prefer software RAID simply because then I'm not > > locked to a specific vendor/controller. > > With RAID-1 (and not even block-striped RAID-0 or 10), > several vendors don't "lock you in." Not only can you > typically read the disk label on the "raw" disk, but there is > support for reading volumes of different drives. > > In fact, this is how LVM2+DM (DeviceMapper) is adding support > for FRAID in kernel 2.6. > > > If a hardware failure occurs that takes out the controller > > but leaves at least one of the HDDs ok, I can take one > > software RAID HDD, stick it into another controller, and > > have a working system in very short order. > > So can I, and I have done so when I didn't have a 3Ware > Escalade or equivalent FRAID card around. > > > Hardware RAID frequently does not have this advantage. > > That is an absolutely _false_ technical statement with > regards to _several_ vendors. Please stop "blanket covering" > all "Hardware RAID" with such absolutes. > > > When I've set up RAID, I did so with the RH installer, and > > have always picked RAID1. > > I'm a huge fan of RAID-1 and RAID-10. > > > (RAID5 is a joke for SW RAID) > > Agreed. The newer Opteron systems help as long as they have > an excellent I/O design, but that loads much of the > interconnect doing just I/O operations for the writes (let > alone during rebuilds) -- loads that could be doing data > services. > > > I've set up a number of RAID installs with "boot/root" and > > extensions using the Software RAID howto. (google it) > > And I have as well. Unfortunately, the main concern is > headless/remote recovery when the disk fails. Installing the > MBR and bootstrap so it can boot from another device when the > BIOS still sees the original, yet failed, disk is the issue. > > Until the LVM2+DM work supports more FRAID chips/cards to > overcome the BIOS mapping issue (not likely until the FRAID > vendors recognize and support the DM work), I still prefer at > $100 3Ware Escalade. > > > Experimentally, I've set up a RAID array, removed one > > drive, booted, shutdown, and then replaced it with the > > other. > > As have I, on non-x86/non-Linux architectures as well as > Linux. But if you have a headless/remote system, and the > first drive fails, that doesn't solve the issue the BIOS > mapping. > > > Both drives booted fine, so there doesn't appear to be > > any particular issue with grub. > > As long as you have physical access to the system. > > > When done, I had to resync the drives (again, see the > > Software RAID howto) > > I prefer autonomous operation. It's worth $100 IMHO. > > > The only time I ran into trouble is that when you set up a > > RAID array, you have to have all the partitions installed > > on the machine at setup time. > > _Not_ true with even software RAID! > > If you aren't using LVM, then yes, you have to pre-partition. > But even then, you can define new MD slices. > > But if you are using LVM/LVM2 (whether LVM/LVM2 is atop of a > MD setup, or you create MD slices in LVM/LVM2 extents), you > can dynamically create slices, fileystems, etc... without > bringing down the box. > > > It seems you can't add active partitions after the fact. > > I think you're mixing the fact that it is difficult to > "resize" MD slices with adding "active" partitions. Those > are more limitations with the legacy BIOS/DOS disk label than > Linux MD, which LVM/LVM2 solves nicely. > > [ Just like LDM Disk Labels solve for Windows NT5+ (2000+) ] > > > Other than that, in 5 cases, it's been basically perfect > > for me, and I plan to deploy Centos 4.x/Software > > RAID/Boot-root again sometime next month. > > As have I. But at the same time, I find that putting in a > $100 3Ware card has saved my butt. > > Like the time the first disk failed 1,000 miles away, and the > BIOS was still mapping the primary disk which it couldn't > boot from. > > Since then, I have refused to put in a co-located box without > a 3Ware Escalade 700x-2 or 800x-2 card. The system has to be > able to boot without local modification. > > > -- > Bryan J. Smith | Sent from Yahoo Mail > mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org | (please excuse any > http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ | missing headers) > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > -- "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." - XEROX PARC slogan, circa 1978