Another route you can go is getting a PCI/PCIe/PCI-X BBU
RAM/NVRAM card
to put an external journal on to speed up fsync performance for
filesystems like ext3 over software raid since these cards
can go beyond
1GB of memory unlike hardware raid cards that usually max out
at 256MB.
What are some of these BBU NVRAM cards that I keep hearing people
talk about? I would love to check them out.
http://www.umem.com/Umem_NVRAM_Cards.html
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Storage/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2180
Weird...I thought the umem cards were more than just BBU SDRAM but...hmm...
Software RAID is also good if you need to be able to transfer
the disks
to another box that does not have a hardware raid controller
or the same
controller.
Weigh these in your decision. :-)
For 2 SATA hard disks used for the OS I think HW RAID is overkill.
Depends. HW RAID + BBU CACHE vs SW RAID vs SW RAID + NVRAM...You cannot
say overkill in certain cases.
Besides I do not believe the PERC 5IR has BBU cache, that
controller is really only meant as a simple RAID1 controller for
the OS.
Dell certainly has a BBU cache option, not sure if OP's Poweredge box
has that option.
If you use HW RAID you will need to install the manufacturer's
software for monitoring it for a hard disk failure.
Yes, likely a negative but with Dell supporting Linux maybe not so.
If you wanted to add additional storage, say a SAS/SATA enclosure
of 15 disks, then I would definitely invest in a HW RAID card for
that!
Depends :-D. How many hardware RAID cards offer 1GB of cache?
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