-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: RIPEMD160 Hannes Dorbath wrote: > Hi, > > I've just had some discussion with colleagues regarding the usage of > hardware or software raid 1/10 for our linux based database servers. > > I myself can't see much reason to spend $500 on high end controller > cards for a simple Raid 1. > > Any arguments pro or contra would be desirable. >
One pro and one con off the top of my head. Hotplug. Depending on your platform, SATA may or may not be hotpluggable (I know AHCI mode is the only one promising some kind of a hotplug, which means ICH6+ and Silicon Image controllers last I heard). SCSI isn't hotpluggable without the use of special hotplug backplanes and disks. You lose that in software RAID, which effectively means you need to shut the box down and do maintenance. Hassle. CPU. It's cheap. Much cheaper than your average hardware RAID card. For the 5-10% overhead usually imposed by software RAID, you can throw in a faster CPU and never even notice it. Most cases aren't CPU-bound anyways, or at least, most cases are I/O bound for the better part. This does raise the question of I/O bandwidth your standard SATA or SCSI controller comes with, though. If you're careful about that and handle hotplug sufficiently, you're probably never going to notice you're not running on metal. Kind regards, - -- Grega Bremec gregab at p0f dot net -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFEYHRAfu4IwuB3+XoRA9jqAJ9sS3RBJZEurvwUXGKrFMRZfYy9pQCggGHh tLAy/YtHwKvhd3ekVDGFtWE= =vlyC -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org