>> >> >> > IMHO, Hardware raid primarily exists because of Microsoft Windows and > VMware esxi, neither of which have good native storage management. > > Because of this, it's fairly hard to order a major brand (HP, Dell, etc) > server without raid cards. > > Raid cards do have the performance boost of nonvolatile write back cache. > Newer/better cards use supercap flash for this, so battery life is no The supercaps may be more stable than batteries but they can also fail. Since I had to replace the supercap of a HP server I know they also do fail. That's why they are also built as a module connected to the controller :-) As for the write back cache, good SSDs do the same with integrated cache and supercaps, so you really don't need the RAID controller to do it anymore. > longer an issue > > That said, make my Unix boxes zfs or mdraid+xfs on jbod for all the > reasons > previously given. Same here, after long years of all kind of RAID hardware, I'm happy to run everything on mdraid+xfs. Software RAID on directly attached U.2 NMVe disks is all we use for new servers. It's fast, stable and also important, still KISS. Regards, Simon