Is it possible to use multiple raid controllers?

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skchan

Weaksauce
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Aug 13, 2004
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I'm planning to build a huge NAS and was wondering if i am able to use raid 6 with multiple raid controllers. I'm looking to build a raid-6 array with 12x 1.5TB drives. 12-port raid controllers are in the $600 range, Is there a cheaper solution? Maybe get like 3x 4-port controllers if the MB has that many slots for the cards. The NAS will be mainly for media storage and minor back ups.
 
No modern decent controllers support spanning the array across multiple cards unfortunately (hardware RAID at least) as far as I know.
 
Are you using at least an entry level server board for this?

3 RAID controllers are going to take forever to initialize even with SAS.

For the money you're going to spend you might as well buy a Dell server
and configure it yourself.

Just a thought.

:cool:
 
pgjensen said:
I think HighPoint supports this.
Click to expand...

I can tell you that the 2300 and 1740 do not.

EDIT: Those are their low end cards though, I don't know how far up the ladder you have to go to find a card that might support that feature.
 
IDK if you would want to use linux... but I know a software raid would work. I'm not a linux guy but I see many posts about software raids using cheap controllers
 
spanning arrays across cards is very fun stuff, however to my knowledge you cannot boot to these sorts of arrays, as they have a software raid overlay inside a running os to get the whole uber shebang rolling...
 
how good is software raid? what are the drawbacks? im guessing soeed is one of them, but since the server is for storing media, i dont thinkm speed is an issue for me. i will be bootong from a seperate drive, maybe software raid is the cheapest option. what card would i get to add additional ports?
 
skchan said:
how good is software raid? what are the drawbacks? im guessing soeed is one of them, but since the server is for storing media, i dont thinkm speed is an issue for me. i will be bootong from a seperate drive, maybe software raid is the cheapest option. what card would i get to add additional ports?
Click to expand...

The largest drawback to software raid is ease of management. A RAID card or external RAID DAS has nice management software. With software RAID, you have to learn mdadm or zfs commands to create, monitor, and repair your array. Its not that hard, but can be daunting for a newbie. I've heard varying reports on how well Hotswap works, but that may not be a consideration for you.

Windows Software RAID sucks. Don't bother with it.

Also, the only bootable software RAID level is 1. You'll need a boot flash drive, HD, or SSD. If I were doing this today with Linux, I'd put /boot on a 4gb SATA flash drive and put / on an LVM LV on the software RAID 6. Not sure how I would do it in Solaris since I've only played with that under ESXi.
 
I know with Linux you can do that, but I'm sure you aren't looking to go that route. :p

Yes, some Highpoint controllers allow you to do that.
 
i guess you can go cheap on the raid card....hows the 12 port RR3530? anyone use it before?

heres what i was thinking for the NAS/HTPC(it will probably be connected to the TV in the living room for movies and music only)...

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=12317032

I have an Antec 900 case, a nvidia 8400gt video card, and an extra hard drive to use as a boot drive, so those parts arent on the list...the 8400gt should be good enough to watch movies, but what about blu ray?
 
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