On 10/05/12 21:15, Stan Hoeppner wrote: > On 5/10/2012 8:51 AM, Phil Turmel wrote: > >> Hardware RAID cards usually offer battery-backed write cache, which is >> very valuable in some applications. I don't have a need for that kind >> of performance, so I can't speak to the details. (Is Stan H. >> listening?) > > Yes, I'm here to drop the hammer, and start a flame war. ;) I've been > lurking and trying to stay out of the fray, but you "keep dragging me > back in!" --Michael Corleone > > I find the mere existence of this thread a bit comical, as with all > others that have preceded it. I made the comment on this list quite > some time ago that md raid is mostly used by hobbyists, and took a lot > of heat for that. The existence of this thread adds ammunition to that > argument. Well while talking about ammunition, did you know HP dropped some nukes? When they released the N36L Microserver, there was a statement on their web site saying that there are no Linux drivers for the AMD (fake)RAID, but they weren't necessary because Linux has built in RAID > If not for the fact Western Digital added "TLER" to the spec sheet of > it's RE and Raptor series drives many years ago, nobody would have every > mentioned it. > > WD did this because those in the "channel" marketplace weren't buying > the drives. They saw no difference with these new "enterprise" drives > but the much higher price. WD has never sold RE/Raptor drives to > server/storage OEMs. WD has never had a presence in enterprise storage. > Seagate, Hitachi/IBM, Fujitsu, and to a small degree Toshiba, have > owned that space for over a decade. > > So in an attempt to drive sales, they added "TLER" to the sheet to > differentiate from their desktop drives. So what happens? All the > hobbyists immediately want to enable this "TLER" feature from the > "enterprise" drives on their consumer models, because "TLER" is all that > makes them "enterprise" drives, after all, "all WD drives are the same, > just with different firmware, right?". > > Proof point: Few write about this subject using the generic term "ERC", > which is used by Seagate, or the term Samsung uses, "CCTL". Everyone > seems to talk about "TLER". Hmmm... Coincidence? No, marketing. Actually, the TLER term is mentioned elsewhere, for example the Adaptec blog I came across Economists often talk about price selectivity, e.g. the coffee shops that charge an extra pound/euro/dollar for `organic' coffee. Does it really cost an extra pound to produce one teaspoon of coffee in an organic way? Of course not, it's just a gimmick to extract an extra pound from people who won't lose any sleep over spending an extra pound. > You won't find a single discussion about ERC/TLER/CCTL on any enterprise > storage forum, unless its brought up by someone desiring to cut cost > corners using consumer drives. Not quite, I'm going the opposite direction, trying to move away from cheap drives - but I don't want to invest heavily in something that is a) just a marketing gimmick b) not going to do me any good if md doesn't exercise the special features of the hardware > So if md raid is not limited to use by hobbyists, and is indeed used in > enterprise environments, then why aren't the enterprise boys discussing > "the problems w/TLER and enterprise drives"? Because obviously md raid > has no issues when being used with enterprise (ERC/TLER/CCTL) drives. > > Either that, or md raid is only used by hobbyists. ;) > Better a hobbyist running Linux than a professional running Windows with fakeraid -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
