On 10/19/2013 7:49 PM, Steve Bergman wrote: > Hello, > > I'm configuring a PowerEdge R520 that I'll be installing RHEL 6.4 on > next month. (Actually, Scientific Linux 6.4) I'll be upgrading to RHEL > (SL) 7 when it's available, which is looking like it might default to XFS. > > This will be a 6 drive RAID10 set up for ~100 Gnome (freenx) desktop > users and a virtual Windows 2008 Server guest running MS-SQL, so there > is plenty of opportunity for i/o parallelism. This seems a good fit for > XFS. > > My preference would be to use Linux MD RAID10. But the Dell configurator > seems strongly inclined to force me towards hardware RAID. > > My choices would be to get a PERC H310 controller that I don't need, > plus a SAS controller that the drives would actually connect to, and use > Linux md. Or I can go with a PERC H710p w/1GB NV cache running hardware > RAID10. (Dell says their RAID cards have to function as RAID > controllers, and cannot act as simple SAS controllers.) > > I also have a choice between 600GB 15k drives and 600GB 10k "HYB CARR" > drives, which I take to be 2.5" hybrid SSD/Rotational drives in a 3.5" > mounting adapter. > > Any comments on any of this? This is a bit fancier than what I usually > configure. And I'm not sure what the performance and operational > differences would be. I know that I'm familiar with Linux's software > RAID tools. And I know I like the way I can replace a drive and have it > sync up transparently in the background while the server is operational. > I don't yet know if I can do that with the H710p card. I also like how I > just *know* that XFS if configuring stride, etc. properly with MD. With > the H710p, I don't know what, if anything, the card is telling the OS > about the underlying RAID configuration. I also just plain like MD. > > I like the 1GB NV cache I get if I go hardware RAID, which I don't get > with the simple SAS controller. (I could turn off barriers.) I also like > the fact that it seems a more standard Dell configuration. (They won't > even connect the drives to the SAS controller at the factory.) > > Any general guidance would be appreciated. We'll probably be keeping > this server for 7 years, and it's pretty important to us. So I'm really > wanting to get this right. Do what everyone else does in this situation: Buy the box with everything you want minus the disk controller. Purchase an LSI 9211-8i and cables, pop the lid and install it, takes 5 minutes tops. Runs $300 for the KIT, about $250 if you buy the OEM card and 2x .5M cables separately. http://www.lsi.com/products/host-bus-adapters/pages/lsi-sas-9211-8i.aspx -- Stan -- 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
