He did give an answer, and from that answer I think he probably does know. In short:
it depends.
I know, it sucks that we can't sum up all aspects of a technology in a single paragraph. Computers aren't easy and are still for people who don't mind doing their own homework.
I used to own a backup company and we did a lot of testing, testing both software and the major hardware vendors. Including some $2,000+ raid cards.
Once upon a time there were plusses and minuses.
Software raid is better. Specifically the Linux MD raid, with LVM on top. It's much more flexible / featurefull and doesn't make your data dependent on a specific controller.
Back in the day, hardware raid had the advantage of not using CPU cycles. At full write bandwidth, raid could use up 10% or even 20% (during
I've seen enough bespoke systems with (admittedly excellent, until they weren't) ancient controllers break after 10 years and someone having to scrape Ebay for a replacement to say yes, this is the correct answer in most all current use cases.
You should have a plan in place to age out old hardware, and have new hardware ready to take over production. While also maintaining backups the entire time, which can use to pre-load your spares and dramatically reduce the replication time when you go live.
A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.
-- P. Erdos
How is this on Slashdot? (Score:-1, Flamebait)
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't know, why post?
I'm interested as well, and I want to read suggestions from people who have been there.
Re: (Score:0, Flamebait)
He did give an answer, and from that answer I think he probably does know. In short:
it depends.
I know, it sucks that we can't sum up all aspects of a technology in a single paragraph. Computers aren't easy and are still for people who don't mind doing their own homework.
Used to be "it depends". Now software is better (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to own a backup company and we did a lot of testing, testing both software and the major hardware vendors. Including some $2,000+ raid cards.
Once upon a time there were plusses and minuses.
Software raid is better. Specifically the Linux MD raid, with LVM on top. It's much more flexible / featurefull and doesn't make your data dependent on a specific controller.
Back in the day, hardware raid had the advantage of not using CPU cycles. At full write bandwidth, raid could use up 10% or even 20% (during
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
Software raid is better.
I've seen enough bespoke systems with (admittedly excellent, until they weren't) ancient controllers break after 10 years and someone having to scrape Ebay for a replacement to say yes, this is the correct answer in most all current use cases.
Re:Used to be "it depends". Now software is better (Score:3)
RAID is not backup. Why should you have to go and buy an ancient controller if the card fails? Start fresh and restore from backup.
Re: (Score:2)
ding ding ding.
You should have a plan in place to age out old hardware, and have new hardware ready to take over production. While also maintaining backups the entire time, which can use to pre-load your spares and dramatically reduce the replication time when you go live.