RE: The last of the questions, hopefully.

Martin,
In general, a software RAID is fine.  However, it may be fine now, but down
the road, the demands on the system may increase and cause a need for
additional performance, including hardware RAID.  The effort involved in
moving a RAID array, especially 5 from software to hardware can be messy, so
you will save a lot of grief in the long run (and greatly increase your
scalability).  This applies more to SCSI than to IDE.

The 3Ware Escalade 7000 cards are indeed 64 bit capable, but the will work
well in 32 bit PCI slots.  The 3Ware cards are only necessary for high end
applications.  If you're just doing a simple mirror with 2 drives, the 3Ware
card is a waste.  However, if you are doing more than 2 drives, or a RAID 5,
the 3Ware card is an excellent investment.  They outperform the
Promise/Highpoint controllers by so much as to make the others a joke.

Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of
Martin Maney
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 10:50 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LUNI-D] The last of the questions, hopefully.


On Fri, May 31, 2002 at 08:44:00AM -0500, Keith T. Garner wrote:
> here that you're probably much better off (especially if you're doing
> any RAID > 1) with a lower cost hardware RAID card.  You'll save
> yourself grief in the long run.  A LOT of grief, and this is under any
> OS, not just windows.

Can you expand on this theme?  I haven't stressed it much (in fact that
machine has been resting for a couple weeks now, as I've been too busy with
other projects), but the IDE/software RAID-1 box I setup has so far
impressed me as being very stable, despite the occasional spot of abuse.

[we'd better be careful, though - this could end up taking us back into
territory that would belong on the non-D list.  <snicker>]

> 6400 and the 7000 for around $230.  They've discontinued the 6000
> series, but its still very good, the 7000 series looks like its
> carrying on the tradition well.

Aren't the 7000s all 64-bit PCI cards, though?  Sure, that does make sense
for high-end servers, but it seems to leave hose of us whose needs are more
modest high and dry.  At least once Hyper runs out of 64xx cards.  :-/

Besides, $230 is about as much expense, maybe even a bit more than the pair
of drives I would be using for the mirror!  That just don't seem right...

--
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