I've done both. The main benefit of hardware RAID is that operations is
simplified. Booting from HW RAID is much less cantankerous than booting from
SW RAID, simply because the BIOS does it all. Linux SW RAID is still a bitch
to set up properly and I'm not sure that all of the bugs are smushed yet. I
have three servers running various flavors of SW RAID, they are all running
reliably, none are booting from their SW RAID packs. I have one server that
boots from HW RAID.
Yes, I have seen SW RAID outperform HW RAID, however, this is at the expense
of CPU overhead on the server (nothing's free, remember?). Granted, most of
us are rich in CPU cycles these days and are quite willing to trade CPU
cycles for faster I/O.
That said, the main goal in High-End, High-Availability, enterprise class
systems is reliability and uniform rapid setup/maintenance across many
servers. HW RAID does this. SW RAID may get there reasonably soon, but not
today. Tinkering with the setup to get a single server to boot from SW RAID
may not be such a big thing, but try doing it with 20 of them. Then go back
to them a year later and try and remember what you did on each one. Worse,
you leave for greener pastures and your successor is cussing you out because
they have to reverse engineer each server you've set up. Worse, you can't
get that management promotion because you can't find anyone willing to take
over your setup.
R
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of DarkMoon
> Sent: Thursday, October 28, 1999 1:15 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Hard Vs. Soft raid?
>
>
> HI,
>
> I was wondering what would be a good hardware raid controller for use
> with RH 6.1? I'm looking at the Mylex extreme Raid. Is a hardware
> raid controller worth the money? Is it easier to set up, more
> reliable, less hassle?
>
>
> Any ideas on this subject will be greatly apreciated.
>
> Ralf R. Kotowski
>
