What is considered 'cheap hw raid' vs 'good hw raid'
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@momurda said in What is considered 'cheap hw raid' vs 'good hw raid':
Say you spend a few hundred bucks on a SuperMicro server mobo with built in RAID on the mobo. Is that fakeraid?
Can't tell. Sure could be. Depends on what it is. the question is if it is hardware or not. FakeRAID isn't hardware RAID at all, all RAID is in the software instead.
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@scottalanmiller said
Good hardware RAID:
- Good, enterprise vendor like LSI or Adaptec
- Cache of at least 512MB
- Support for a wide variety of RAID levels
- Fast CPU or ASIC
- Can be swapped out in case of failure
Under those guidelines, why wouldn't the PERC H310 qualify?
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@BRRABill said in What is considered 'cheap hw raid' vs 'good hw raid':
@scottalanmiller said
Good hardware RAID:
- Good, enterprise vendor like LSI or Adaptec
- Cache of at least 512MB
- Support for a wide variety of RAID levels
- Fast CPU or ASIC
- Can be swapped out in case of failure
Under those guidelines, why wouldn't the PERC H310 qualify?
It does, it is a LSI card IIRC.
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@BRRABill said in What is considered 'cheap hw raid' vs 'good hw raid':
@scottalanmiller said
Good hardware RAID:
- Good, enterprise vendor like LSI or Adaptec
- Cache of at least 512MB
- Support for a wide variety of RAID levels
- Fast CPU or ASIC
- Can be swapped out in case of failure
Under those guidelines, why wouldn't the PERC H310 qualify?
No. It meets qualification #1 but has no cache and an anaemic CPU that can barely keep up.
https://mangolassi.it/topic/6375/examining-the-dell-perc-h310-controller
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@coliver said in What is considered 'cheap hw raid' vs 'good hw raid':
@BRRABill said in What is considered 'cheap hw raid' vs 'good hw raid':
@scottalanmiller said
Good hardware RAID:
- Good, enterprise vendor like LSI or Adaptec
- Cache of at least 512MB
- Support for a wide variety of RAID levels
- Fast CPU or ASIC
- Can be swapped out in case of failure
Under those guidelines, why wouldn't the PERC H310 qualify?
It does, it is a LSI card IIRC.
It is LSI, it's not a serious hardware RAID card. It's only useful for learning, not production.
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@scottalanmiller said in What is considered 'cheap hw raid' vs 'good hw raid':
@BRRABill said in What is considered 'cheap hw raid' vs 'good hw raid':
@scottalanmiller said
Good hardware RAID:
- Good, enterprise vendor like LSI or Adaptec
- Cache of at least 512MB
- Support for a wide variety of RAID levels
- Fast CPU or ASIC
- Can be swapped out in case of failure
Under those guidelines, why wouldn't the PERC H310 qualify?
No. It meets qualification #1 but has no cache and an anaemic CPU that can barely keep up.
https://mangolassi.it/topic/6375/examining-the-dell-perc-h310-controller
Oh that's interesting I always thought it was a full on RAID card. Looks like it is just a SAS expander from that thread.
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@coliver said in What is considered 'cheap hw raid' vs 'good hw raid':
@scottalanmiller said in What is considered 'cheap hw raid' vs 'good hw raid':
@BRRABill said in What is considered 'cheap hw raid' vs 'good hw raid':
@scottalanmiller said
Good hardware RAID:
- Good, enterprise vendor like LSI or Adaptec
- Cache of at least 512MB
- Support for a wide variety of RAID levels
- Fast CPU or ASIC
- Can be swapped out in case of failure
Under those guidelines, why wouldn't the PERC H310 qualify?
No. It meets qualification #1 but has no cache and an anaemic CPU that can barely keep up.
https://mangolassi.it/topic/6375/examining-the-dell-perc-h310-controller
Oh that's interesting I always thought it was a full on RAID card. Looks like it is just a SAS expander from that thread.
It's basically a high end SAS card with some really basic RAID functions tacked on.
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The card i have is LSI Sas 9260-4i
http://www.avagotech.com/products/server-storage/raid-controllers/megaraid-sas-9260-4i#specificationsSeems to check Scott's checkboxes. Although it is getting a bit old spec wise it seems, it has not been used to my knowledge.
This supermicro board would be something i might want for home use.
https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X10SRL-F.cfm
I dont really know enough about the Intel C612 chipset it has to know if it is good or not. -
@momurda said in What is considered 'cheap hw raid' vs 'good hw raid':
The card i have is LSI Sas 9260-4i
http://www.avagotech.com/products/server-storage/raid-controllers/megaraid-sas-9260-4i#specificationsSeems to check Scott's checkboxes. Although it is getting a bit old spec wise it seems, it has not been used to my knowledge.
Yup, very entry level.
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@momurda said in What is considered 'cheap hw raid' vs 'good hw raid':
The card i have is LSI Sas 9260-4i
http://www.avagotech.com/products/server-storage/raid-controllers/megaraid-sas-9260-4i#specificationsSeems to check Scott's checkboxes. Although it is getting a bit old spec wise it seems, it has not been used to my knowledge.
This supermicro board would be something i might want for home use.
https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X10SRL-F.cfm
I dont really know enough about the Intel C612 chipset it has to know if it is good or not.I've used that card before. It was bought for a white-box server build a very long time ago. Worked really well for what we were doing.
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@momurda what did you end up using? And how did it end up performing?
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From my experience, you are correct about the fake raid terminology.
Fake RAID = is the raid you do on the chip-set level without any dedicated card doing the works, but it fools the operating system that gets installed on-top of it, and does not require any special config from the OS side. I think you can do fake raid for RAID 1 for important workstations like the HR computers for example.
Software raid = is like mdadm in Linux or Windows 10 storage spaces, it relies on the OS side for everything.
Read RAID or Hardware RAID is getting a good RAID card.
