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Mirroring SSDs bad idea?

A

Antoneo

n00b
Joined
Sep 30, 2005
Messages
13
Hey guys,

I ordered 2 Intel 320 160GB SSDs for a RAID1 mirror in a ESXi all-in-one. It'll be a ZFS build home server for multimedia and lab purposes. The drives haven't arrived yet but while I wait, I'm wondering if I should have bought just one. I could either pocket the difference or buy two Intel 320 40GB SSDs for L2ARC and ZIL. I'm just aiming for uptime with the fewest headaches while maximizing dollars spent. I plan to use the server extensively and don't want to ever spend time rebuilding VMs or wait out downtime for an RMA.

I'm planning to RAID1 the SSDs using the motherboard RAID, and use it as a VMFS datastore for ESXi VMs. Hopefully ESXi be able to see the resultant RAID drive. I've heard that it only likes RAID coming from hardware controllers only.

Is a RAID1 set of mirrored SSDs unnecessary and a waste of money? Are there any good reasons why I shouldn't do that?

As an aside, can I place the VMs on a ZFS RAID1 SSD mirror given my hardware? I don't see a way since it seems to be a chicken or the egg problem (FreeBSD needs to be installed somewhere).

Here are the relevant parts in this server:
1x Intel Xeon e3-1230
16GB ECC UDIMM RAM
1x Supermicro x9scm motherboard with 2x SATA3, 4x SATA2 ports
1x Intel SASU8CI HBA with 8 SATA2 ports
6x Seagate 2TB 5900RPM hard drives

Thanks!
 
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