LSI SAS onboard controller -

[imipenem]

I'm interested in building a database server for our ERP software. I'm considering the Tyan Tempest i5100W (link ) because it has an onboard SAS controller. My question is, would the LSI SAS controller be considered hardware or software based RAID?

 

[SolMiester]

That would be hardware based RAID SAS, mind you SAS drives are very expensive 146GB = $750+ tax here in NZ. you could just use the onboard SATA RAID 5 across 6 cheaper drives FTW.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: imipenem
I'm interested in building a database server for our ERP software. I'm considering the Tyan Tempest i5100W (link ) because it has an onboard SAS controller. My question is, would the LSI SAS controller be considered hardware or software based RAID?

It's a software based (a.k.a. host based) RAID solution, but not the brainless 100% software RAID that uses inexpensive vanilla disk controllers. The LSI 1068E chip design, firmware, and drivers bring almost every application-specific optimization that can help make software RAID perform not so bad under low-to-moderate I/O and compute work loads, given ample other system resources.

Not sure if you'll need to use FB-DIMMs on that board, though. If so, you may want to keep looking.

 

[imipenem]

tcsenter - How much would a hardware based RAID card cost? How much better would the performance be? Also, Intel's 5100 series chipsets do not use FB-DIMMS.

Thanks

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: imipenem
tcsenter - How much would a hardware based RAID card cost? How much better would the performance be?

Hardware RAID solutions come in entry-level to premium feature sets, at appropriate price points, like anything else. Good hardware RAID starts around $300.

The question is not how much more performance but rather do you need (or want) features only hardware RAID can offer, such as being able to create/manage/rebuild arrays without an OS and physically moving your array into any system the controller can be installed in. Hardware RAID offers guaranteed performance, not to be confused with higher or more or better performance. This merely means that whatever loads are placed on the system CPU, it won't affect RAID performance. Whatever loads are placed on your RAID system, it will not affect system CPU performance.

So I imagine that database servicing for your ERP software may potentially place considerable loads elsewhere in the system like CPU and RAM. If so, that is a good candidate for hardware RAID. But its impossible to say, really, without evaluating it in your application.