How is 2k3 raid5 compared to linux?

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Fryguy8

[H]ard|Gawd
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I'm having a lot of issues getting raid5 set up in linux (process keeps freezing and stuff), and so I'm considering going to win2k3 server for my server setup. How well does software raid5 work in 2k3server compared to linux?

Running ubuntu 6.10 server w/ mdadm btw.

I'm not sure it's not a hardware issue yet, but I want to explore some other options.
 
Linux raid is fast and reliable, and has many configuration options such as OCE. I have never used win raid but i have not heard good things about write speeds. Can you give some more details about your current problems?
 
basic consumer level server, abit nf7-s2 motherboard (nforce2), athlonxp, gig of ram, and generic pci sata card (4-port, promise chipset).

Installed ubuntu, got network set up, tossed machine in closet.

Installed lm-sensors to monitor temps and mdadm to set up the array. Drives in the system are:

hdc - 160gb OS drive

sda, sdb, sdc, sdd - 320gb seagates, goal to be in raid5.

partitioned drives as raid autodetect, single primary partition

mdadm --create --verbose --raid-devices=4 --level=5 --auto=md /dev/md0 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1

And the shell froze. Hard reset the server and connected again, and kept an eye on /proc/mdstat. Seemed to be rebuilding the array (slowly, like 3 hour process, seems normal from what I understand). Build speed as about 20mb/s or so. It gets to a certain point and then starts spitting out unrecoverable read errors to /var/log/syslog and keeps trying to rebuild unsuccessfully. Rebooting causes it to start over again, dying again eventually (at a different percentage).

The 4 drives for the array are new, and temps in the system seem ok (proc is at like 45c while it's constructing the array).
 
Does it always die on the same drive? Perhaps that drive is bad? If so you could switch the drives around and see if it still dies on the same one. Try repartitioning the failing drive?
 
I'd say you need to look into those Linux failures.

I run Linux md raid-5 for many years now, including disk failures and controller (disk controller, not raid software) problems, and didn't have any trouble whatsoever.

If Windoze behaves better than you probably have a problem with the base disk controller.
 
well i got somebody that knows more about raid on linux to help me set up evms as opposed to mdadm, it's building now so we'll see how this goes.
 
I have a dual raid 5 setup on Gentoo for my system and have had no issues with it. I moved it from a 2003 server. I liked 2003 server but I didn't like that my array had to be just 1 large drive. I like Linux and being able to use LVM to slice it up into 'partitions' to then mount to different mount points.

I used these 2 guides to get it all up and running.

Software Raid HOWTO

LVM HOWTO

Hope those help.
 
yah i talked to some sysadmins that I know (I'm just a programmer), and he helped me get evms set up. All seems well in the world.

Thanks for the advice and help.
 
I have not used linux raid, thought about it, but at my current needs, Windows raid 5 works great, i have a 2tb raid 5 array at home accros 8 Seagate 320gb preps. and it works great, also at work i set up 4x250gb WDs in raid 5 and it has been in use for 6months without issue.....
 
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