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Arguments Pro/Contra Software Raid

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Hi,

I've just had some discussion with colleagues regarding the usage of hardware or software raid 1/10 for our linux based database servers.

I myself can't see much reason to spend $500 on high end controller cards for a simple Raid 1.

Any arguments pro or contra would be desirable.

From my experience and what I've read here:

+ Hardware Raids might be a bit easier to manage, if you never spend a few hours to learn Software Raid Tools.

+ There are situations in which Software Raids are faster, as CPU power has advanced dramatically in the last years and even high end controller cards cannot keep up with that.

+ Using SATA drives is always a bit of risk, as some drives are lying about whether they are caching or not.

+ Using hardware controllers, the array becomes locked to a particular vendor. You can't switch controller vendors as the array meta information is stored proprietary. In case the Raid is broken to a level the controller can't recover automatically this might complicate manual recovery by specialists.

+ Even battery backed controllers can't guarantee that data written to the drives is consistent after a power outage, neither that the drive does not corrupt something during the involuntary shutdown / power irregularities. (This is theoretical as any server will be UPS backed)


--
Regards,
Hannes Dorbath


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