RAID inquiry!!

[Breezie]

i heard from someone "i have no raid on my motherboard, nor a raid card on this pc, infact no raid hardware in my house, but i have 2x30gb maxtor ide drives running raid 0 "

and they have this pic

here

so what's going on? its not possible to raid without proper hardware, right?

 

[Sunner]

Software RAID, nothing mysterious, just about any modern and many not so modern OS's can handle it.

 

[Breezie]

so there's software raid... can it be done on xp like in the pic? how is it compared to someone with hardware raid?

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Breezie
so there's software raid... can it be done on xp like in the pic? how is it compared to someone with hardware raid?

Just FYI, there are also "software" raid cards and "hardware" raid cards.

An example of a software card would be a sub-$50 PCI IDE raid card, like this.

An example of a hardware raid card, one with it's own PROCESSOR, would be like this.

There's a big difference b/t software and hardware raid.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Breezie
so there's software raid... can it be done on xp like in the pic? how is it compared to someone with hardware raid?

Never used it with XP, but it should work, not sure if both Pro and Home can handle it, etc.
Performance depends on the level used, RAID-0 and 1 are very simple, while RAID-5 is far more complicated, and hence benefits more from a dedicated controller.

We use DiskSuite for Solaris alot at work, just for mirroring on boxes with two disks, and for that it's fine.
We also have one rather old box running a relatively large RAID-5 using DS, and it's dog slow.

 

[Breezie]

ohh so how's the "differences" between hardware and software raid go? this is very interesting to me ^____^

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Breezie
ohh so how's the "differences" between hardware and software raid go? this is very interesting to me ^____^

For one thing, a hardware based RAID will be transparent to the OS, that is, the logical drive will look like just one drive to the OS.
Also, as mentioned a real RAID controller will have a processor on board doing parity calculations, etc, and they typically have rather large caches(anywhere from 16-32 MB up to a gig or so, even more for larger disk systems).

Anyways, there are lots of differences, it's kinda like asking about the difference between software and hardware based 3D rendering, if you dig deep enou9gh you could write a book about it.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Breezie
ohh so how's the "differences" between hardware and software raid go? this is very interesting to me ^____^

Good, I'm glad it's interesting for you. It is for me too. I'm hooked on hardware.

Software raid utilizes the systems' CPU to do the calculations. This adds lag and overhead, which basically slows down your rig.

Now, in all honesty, with todays' typical systems (2GHz+ CPU/200MHz FSB/7000rpm hard drives/etc) it really isn't an issue until you get into the big leagues, like RAID 5, RAID 10, etc. But cards that do THAT are big bucks and will only run on server motherboards with 64-bit PCI slots.

Anyway, I can say this much.

After using the onboard (software) raid on boards like the Abit KT7-R, Epox 8KHA+ (I think that's the model#) I bought a 3Ware 7000-2 hardware raid IDE card) the difference was like night and day on my gaming rig. Very happy with this investment. It runs my storage array.

 

[Sunner]

Actually cards aren't that expensive, a HPaq SmartArray card with 256 MB of cache and four channels cost us around $1.000.

The big bucks come in when you see "System" rather than "Array", "Chassis" or some such in the product name, at least with Sun

 

[MichaelD]

Whoa. A one-large is major bucks when you're shelling it out yourself! :Q

Now, if it's out of the jobs' IT Budget...:evil:

"Why yes, I would like that 10-drive, Raid 50 array. I'll take the 10 Fujitsu MAS 73GB, U320 drives with that, please. Uh, and the snazzy case fans with the neon too, please. "

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Whoa. A one-large is major bucks when you're shelling it out yourself! :Q

Now, if it's out of the jobs' IT Budget...:evil:

"Why yes, I would like that 10-drive, Raid 50 array. I'll take the 10 Fujitsu MAS 73GB, U320 drives with that, please. Uh, and the snazzy case fans with the neon too, please. "

Think big.
Or for a more conservative desktop solution, think a little smaller.

I actually have a couple of neon fans in my workstation at work, I'll not go into that story, but suffice to say, my box looks a bit different from the HPaq's we use otherwise.

 

[MichaelD]

Up to four Array Frames can be supported, each with redundant power supplies and up to 256 drives

Capacity: Number of disks (with spares): 5 to 1024
Capacity: 16 Hot spares (maximum)
Total raw capacity:
146 GB, 10,000-rpm drive: 147.5 TB
73 GB, 10,000-rpm drive: 74.7 TB
36 GB, 15,000-rpm drive: 36.8 TB

:Q *faints*



Not directly the same, but related, price wise... at my work, we have 8 IBM Superdomes....$1.2M apiece, IIRC.

I am not one of Sysadmins...Lord, I wish. But I know someone...so they let me into the Server Farm. They threatened to break both my arms if I so much as thought about touching a terminal. Fiber everywhere...sigh...it's a visual orgasm.

 

[Sunner]

THose wouldn't be HP's? IBM's top end UNIX box is the p690 turbo

Oh and by the way, where do you work that needs 8 of them beasts?

 

[MichaelD]

Whoops, my bad...I meant to say HP!! Really...I'm tired. Won't edit the original post...this will suffice.