[ale] Onboard RAID

[Solomon Peachy]

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 02:14:47PM +0000, Lightner, Jeff wrote:
> I agree that Fake RAID doesn't save you anything over doing software 
> RAID and the downside of using it likely outweighs any touted 
> benefits.

FakeRAID buys you exactly one benefit over Linux mdraid: The ability to 
boot off of the array itself.  In theory, anyway.  I've seen plenty of 
FakeRAID arrays fail to boot or initialize properly when one of the 
disks dies. 

What I prefer to do (with great success) is to use Linux mdraid, and put 
/boot on a small USB stick.  That way losing a disk in the array won't 
risk leaving you with an unbootable system.

That said, I prefer to use 3Ware controllers, especially for RAID5/6.  
They JustWork(tm) no matter what is thrown at them, and their Linux 
support is top-notch.  Their controllers/metadata are explicitly 
forward-compatible, and in most cases backwards-compatible too, so a 
controller failure won't leave you screwed.

 - Solomon
-- 
Solomon Peachy        		       pizza at shaftnet dot org	 
Melbourne, FL                          ^^ (mail/jabber/gtalk) ^^
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
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