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Hardware raid v. Software Raid v. linux raid

R

Rakinos

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 31, 2001
Messages
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I'm going to be building a file server using a raid 5 with 3-5 hard drives (and planning to expand to more drives in the future) that will host dvd rips, documents, and file backups as well as other media. I'm curious as to whether or not I should go with a hardware raid solution like the Areca 1220, or a software raid card like the Rocketraid 2320, or simply using the software raid 5 that is built into linux. If I went with linux raid, I would have to either find a motherboard with six or more sata connectors, or do a mix of onboard sata and a cheap card. Do you guys think that hardware raid is worth the steep price? Or is a would I be better off with a software raid solution? Would the highpoint card be that much faster than linux raid? I plan on building it with an athlon 64 3000+ or faster and a gb of ram, btw.
 
The two controllers you linked are Hardware RAID solutions, the Linux RAID solution is just called a Software RAID.

Most controllers that you purchase (I would say nearly all of them) are hardware raid devices. All operating system implementations without the need of a controller are software implementations.


I would recomend that you first set us a budget, the usage, futureproof, and any additional requirements and needs that there may be. For some software is simple, cheap, and easy, for others they swear by hardware raid.
 
The reason I said that the highpoint was software raid was due to this post. For the entire setup, I dont really want to spend more than $1500 and the drives will be 500gb drives. My plan for being futureproof was to (if I went with a pci-express controller) purchase a card with 8 sata connectors, that way I could expand my raid as needed. This will be for home use with a max of probably six clients, but the files being saved and transfered will be large (from mp3s, to AVIs, to mpeg2), so speed is a factor. It will be hooked up to other computers on the network using gigabit. I may retire my knoppmyth box and throw the tuner into this setup, to cut down on power consumption in the future, thus the gb of ram.

BTW: I just wanted to say that I am in love with your setup, Ockie, and would love to come close to a fraction of your available space, but I doubt that's going to happen any time soon :( ;)
 
hardware RAID, that´s a nobrainer, but dont use your mobo´s (onboard) RAID controller, get yourself a good RAID card
 
For myself I bought a 3ware 9500s-8 RAID controller off of eBay for much less than buying it for new. It works great and makes expansion pretty easy. It can use either a standard 32-bit PCI slot (which is what I do) or a PCI-X slot (but not PCIe).

It is completely independent of the OS, so I can put the RAID card in any computer and hook the drives to it and all of my data will still be there. I can also hook my drives to any 3ware 9500s series card and still have all of my data. This flexibility gives me the ability to work around failures in the OS, the hardware, and the RAID card and still have a good possibility of keeping my data.

Good Luck,

~PJ
 
Ockie said:
The two controllers you linked are Hardware RAID solutions, the Linux RAID solution is just called a Software RAID.
Click to expand...
The Highpoint is driver-based. Without the proper drivers (in binary-only form from Highpoint) the card is just a plain sata controller, with no support for raid inherent in it. The 3220 actually has an onboard processor, but the 2320/2220 don't.
Ockie said:
I would recomend that you first set us a budget, the usage, futureproof, and any additional requirements and needs that there may be. For some software is simple, cheap, and easy, for others they swear by hardware raid.
Click to expand...
Agreed. "Recommend me a raid controller" is an awfully broad mandate ;) Any of the solutions will work out okay (depending on your level of Linux administration skill) but it's a matter of cost and time versus performance. You don't need much performance for watching movies, but it's still a question of cost and time.
 
Flexibility and Reliability would be hardware RAID (although software is getting more and more reliable).

Also, there are managed hardware RAID solutions where the card has its own processor, memory, etc. and then just straight hardware RAID solutions where the card uses the systems processor, memory, etc. The managed solutions are the ones that cost so much more since you are paying for all the extras which lead to better reliability and performance, although it is really not needed in small setups.

You will not see any real difference in performance between the two if you are the only one on it. You only see the performance difference come out when there are many simulataneous connections and users on the same file server.
 
Grentz said:
Also, there are managed hardware RAID solutions where the card has its own processor, memory, etc. and then just straight hardware RAID solutions where the card uses the systems processor, memory, etc.
Click to expand...

I would call these "hardware raid" and "driver-based raid", respectively. Whatever, it's the principle that's important.
 
unhappy_mage said:
I would call these "hardware raid" and "driver-based raid", respectively. Whatever, it's the principle that's important.
Click to expand...
Yup Yup, I have heard both from manufactures and IT guys, so I guess it somewhat depends on who you talk to.

And as you said, the principle is what matters :)
 
leSLIe said:
hardware RAID, that´s a nobrainer, but dont use your mobo´s (onboard) RAID controller, get yourself a good RAID card
Click to expand...

Ok, I see this a lot and just want to ask. Why is "onboard" raid so bad? Especially when being used for a home PC? Sure, it isn't expandable and if your motherboard dies then you have to purchase another of the same model to have any hopes of keeping the data array intact. But, other than these two reasons, what is the deal?

If you are talking about just a home file server, then the extra CPU usages shouldn't be that significant. Considering I usually build a system that is going to be around for a minimum of 4 years, no worries about needing to upgrade to another board that doesn't support the raid array. Expandability may be an issue, but that is a hurdle I will come to later.
 
Is there a big difference from the driver based hardware raid and linux based software raid?
 
Rakinos said:
Is there a big difference from the driver based hardware raid and linux based software raid?
Click to expand...

Linux md is much more reliable and has advanced tools, while the driver-based raid generally sticks you with a pretty limited set of options. Linux raid is very mature, plus your array will continue to work when moved to different hardware, including a different hdd controller. Much better, IMO.
 
Just to play devil's advocate, driver-based raid has the advantage of showing up the same way under many OSes. So if you dual-boot your machine, driver-based raid would let you have your storage local and still accessible under both OSes. You would need to use a filesystem supported by both OSes, though, like FAT32. NTFS or ext3 would be valid choices, too, but neither of those is a choice I'd like to make.

Either software or driver-based will work pretty well. I've run LSR in the past because I'm cheap :)p) but driver-based is considered to be easier to set up. YMMV.
 
farscapesg1 said:
Ok, I see this a lot and just want to ask. Why is "onboard" raid so bad? Especially when being used for a home PC? Sure, it isn't expandable and if your motherboard dies then you have to purchase another of the same model to have any hopes of keeping the data array intact. But, other than these two reasons, what is the deal?
Click to expand...

ok lets compare here:

1 mobo with onboard RAID controller around $160
1 good RAID controller card around $250

well it all comes down to quality, raid controller cards give much more overall quality like error correction control, stability and synchronization. The key issue here is u would get less a LOT LESS array problems with a RAID controller card than with your onboard controller
 
taqueso said:
Linux md is much more reliable and has advanced tools, while the driver-based raid generally sticks you with a pretty limited set of options. Linux raid is very mature, plus your array will continue to work when moved to different hardware, including a different hdd controller. Much better, IMO.
Click to expand...

If I have to purchase the controller anyway to get enough ports, what option would you go with? Also, does linux raid allow you to do on the fly expansion without having to migrate all the data off?
 
If the machine is going to be dedicated (linux); hen it's the cheapest way just to use the standard mobo controllers and cheap-ass expansion cards. My 2.66 ghz p4 machine handles it just fine. I can always upgrade and alter the main hardware as long as I have MDADM running, I'm good. Or any other version of linux!
 
Rakinos said:
If I have to purchase the controller anyway to get enough ports, what option would you go with? Also, does linux raid allow you to do on the fly expansion without having to migrate all the data off?
Click to expand...

First, there's the Supermicro AOC-SaT2-MV8. If good drivers for Linux ever come out for it, it'll be quite a nice deal - $100ish for 8 ports on PCI-X (not express). Other than that, go for cheap Sil3132 or whatever controllers; they're not terribly fast, but you don't need it for your workload.

Second, yes it does. It works both under EVMS and md.
 
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