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ideas for cheap raid controller for linux

mcveigh

mcveigh

Diamond Member
I want to setupa file server at home with spare stuff....but I want raid1

how do adaptec or lsi controllers do? I prefer 3ware but am trying to go cheap.

I haven't tried software raid before..is that a option?
 
I was thinking software raid. Then I read your third line. And I realized nothing had changed. Or something. Try software raid. Shouldn't be too difficult.
 
well, is there anything I need to be aware of for software raid? any limitations or advantages/disadvantages overhardware raid?

i'm not too concerned about performance as this will mainly be for file stoarge and perhaps streaming movies to a tv sometime down the road.
 
Well, one thing is, the userland tools for creating and maintaining RAID volumes suck, at least in RedHat.
Im comparing to the Solstice Disksuite utils, I really like those.

Maybe EVMS is the answer?
 
You generally don't want RAID on your root filesystem, just on the one you're putting the data storage on.
 
I'm running software RAID1 on my work system. Including the root filesystem. I can boot from either drive if I have a failure.
 
Hardware RAID for the root wouldn't be a big deal but I wouldn't want to deal with a software RAID root even though it's possible.
 
you can by a basic ide controller like a promise ultra 100 for $20 or so, and then solder on a few resistors and flash the bios and you'll have a raid controller capable of raid 0 or 1 (or 0+1), I've made a few without problems, and its pretty easy to get to work in linux, and you'll have a bios based rebuild if you feel more comfortable with that. Granted these are really only hardware assited raid, but they do the job.


For hardware raid 5 I kinda like the Promise caching raid controllers (about $160) that support up to 256MB SDRAM for cache and do raid 5 too. Pretty cheap for hardware raid 5 I think


Software raid in linux is good, but can be overwhelming to setup for some people, just depends on your experience level. Also, the only real thing you give up with software raid is performance since the CPU has to do everything, no cpu on a raid card to offload XOR functions and the like.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
Hardware RAID for the root wouldn't be a big deal but I wouldn't want to deal with a software RAID root even though it's possible.
Click to expand...

Nothingman- I am glad that you quantified that statement. I am running HW RAID1 on a system. I am looking at working HW RAID5 on 4 enclosures (so that it sees 4 disks) then I plan to do Software RAID across that. Not sure what the speed is but since I have the ability to set it up I will benchmark it and see what happens.. Then I will do the same with LVM rather then SW RAID to see how different. What I am looking for is in the off chance that an entire enclosure of 10 Disks drops I want the system to burp and then SW rebuild on the 4th enclosure (kinda like a RAID5 that is RAID5ed). I think that the problem will be through put to the HDD.


Panther505.
 
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