On 4/14/2014 4:50 AM, NeilBrown wrote: > On Mon, 14 Apr 2014 01:14:05 -0500 Stan Hoeppner <stan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > wrote: > >> Better classification for the current era: >> >> 1. RAID controller - ASIC firmware, BBWC >> 2. HBA w/RAID - ASIC firmware, cache less >> 3. Fake-RAID - host software To be clear, above I am differentiating between the various flavors of "hardware RAID" devices, and part of the classification is based on where the RAID binary is executed. I do not address software only RAID above. > Can we come up with a better adjective than "fake"? Many already have, but the terms were not adopted en masse. > It makes sense if you say "fake RAID controller", but people don't. They > safe "fake RAID", which sounds like the RAID is fake, which it isn't. I'm not attempting to reinvent the wheel above. "FakeRAID", and various spellings of it, is the term in common use for a decade+, is widely recognized and understood. It is even used in official Linux distro documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installing_with_Fake_RAID > How about "BIOS RAID" ?? or "host RAID" ?? I agree that a better descriptive short label would be preferable. However I don't see either of these working. "BIOS RAID" will be confusing to some as many folks A. don't understand the difference between BIOS and firmware B. have a BIOS config setup utility on their RAID controller or HBA w/RAID card, and both devices "boot from the card's BIOS" "Host RAID" has been used extensively over the years in various circles to describe host software only RAID solutions. Additionally this wouldn't be an accurate description because there have been many add-in IDE/SATA "RAID" cards that split RAID duty between card BIOS/firmware and host OS driver in this manner. HighPoint has such current product: http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_rr272x.htm They describes this as "Hardware-Assisted RAID", which is a pretty good description IMO. Any effort or campaign to supplant "fakeRAID" with another term I think will be extremely difficult and prone to fail as "fakeRAID" is already so entrenched in the lexicon, and has been used in official distro documentation. Just my 2¢ Cheers, 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
