What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?
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I built a server a while back with a SuperMicro X10SRL-F board which I believe has fakeRAID... I've been searching around for a true hardware RAID card with battery pack but I haven't really found much.
I usually deal with Dell PowerEdge servers for this sort of thing but I wanted something that would work for a home server setup.
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Basically the only enterprise hardware RAID makers are Adaptec and LSI. I've found Adaptec to be much better than LSI IMHO.
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@scottalanmiller said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
Basically the only enterprise hardware RAID makers are Adaptec and LSI. I've found Adaptec to be much better than LSI IMHO.
Oh that made me remember that I do have another system at work with a LSI 9300-8i card in it. Seems pretty good but no battery. I'm looking at Adaptec cards now. They look nice but a bit pricey.
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@dave247 said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@scottalanmiller said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
Basically the only enterprise hardware RAID makers are Adaptec and LSI. I've found Adaptec to be much better than LSI IMHO.
Oh that made me remember that I do have another system at work with a LSI 9300-8i card in it. Seems pretty good but no battery. I'm looking at Adaptec cards now. They look nice but a bit pricey.
Good hardware RAID is super pricey.. Battery backed are the cheap ones, flash backed is even better.
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Is there a reason that you want hardware RAID for home use?
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@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
Is there a reason that you want hardware RAID for home use?
Because I want whatever I install for an OS or Hypervisor to only see the volume presented by the RAID controller rather than multiple drives. I don't really want to use the fakeRAID on my motherboard like I currently am.
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@dave247 said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
Is there a reason that you want hardware RAID for home use?
Because I want whatever I install for an OS or Hypervisor to only see the volume presented by the RAID controller rather than multiple drives. I don't really want to use the fakeRAID on my motherboard like I currently am.
And software RAID is not available with your chosen hypervisor?
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@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@dave247 said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
Is there a reason that you want hardware RAID for home use?
Because I want whatever I install for an OS or Hypervisor to only see the volume presented by the RAID controller rather than multiple drives. I don't really want to use the fakeRAID on my motherboard like I currently am.
And software RAID is not available with your chosen hypervisor?
It doesn't seem that my motherboard will work with ESXi but I haven't finished looking into it (I'll probably have to build a custom image with the drivers). Regardless, I'd rather use a hardware RAID card this time.
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@dave247 said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@dave247 said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
Is there a reason that you want hardware RAID for home use?
Because I want whatever I install for an OS or Hypervisor to only see the volume presented by the RAID controller rather than multiple drives. I don't really want to use the fakeRAID on my motherboard like I currently am.
And software RAID is not available with your chosen hypervisor?
It doesn't seem that my motherboard will work with ESXi but I haven't finished looking into it. Regardless, I'd rather use a hardware RAID card this time.
ESXi requires hardware RAID, it is as simple as that. Hyper-V is acceptable to use software RAID in a lab or home use. KVM or Xen have enterprise software RAID, so you have no need for a RAID card at all for them, business or home use.
FakeRAID is never the right answer and is part of the software RAID family, not hardware RAID family, so as ESXi must have hardware RAID, FakeRAID can't work there.
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@dave247 said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
It doesn't seem that my motherboard will work with ESXi ...
Your motherboard should work fine. ESXi just needs hardware RAID, so as the motherboard lacks that, you need to bring it. It's not a matter of not working, just a matter of the mobo not having all of the necessary hardware on board. No different than if a GPU was required and you had to add that on.
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@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@dave247 said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@dave247 said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
Is there a reason that you want hardware RAID for home use?
Because I want whatever I install for an OS or Hypervisor to only see the volume presented by the RAID controller rather than multiple drives. I don't really want to use the fakeRAID on my motherboard like I currently am.
And software RAID is not available with your chosen hypervisor?
It doesn't seem that my motherboard will work with ESXi but I haven't finished looking into it. Regardless, I'd rather use a hardware RAID card this time.
ESXi requires hardware RAID, it is as simple as that. Hyper-V is acceptable to use software RAID in a lab or home use. KVM or Xen have enterprise software RAID, so you have no need for a RAID card at all for them, business or home use.
FakeRAID is never the right answer and is part of the software RAID family, not hardware RAID family, so as ESXi must have hardware RAID, FakeRAID can't work there.
Yep... that's why I asked about a hardware RAID controller in my OP
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If for home, I assume that the goal is learning ESXi itself? Otherwise, just use a different hypervisor. KVM seems to be the hypervisor of prominence today.
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@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
If for home, I assume that the goal is learning ESXi itself? Otherwise, just use a different hypervisor. KVM seems to be the hypervisor of prominence today.
Well, I use ESXi/vSphere at work. I wanted to try out the free version of ESXi at home for S&G, but I may also experiment with other Hypervisors, depending on what will work with my system. I would like to check out KVM.
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@dave247 said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
If for home, I assume that the goal is learning ESXi itself? Otherwise, just use a different hypervisor. KVM seems to be the hypervisor of prominence today.
Well, I use ESXi/vSphere at work. I wanted to try out the free version of ESXi at home for S&G, but I may also experiment with other Hypervisors, depending on what will work with my system. I would like to check out KVM.
I would skip ESXi Free, it has so little value even for education. If you use ESXi at work, you already have the exposure to the real thing. The crippled free version is worthless.
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KVM has no need for hardware RAID, so save yourself the $500 and go straight to that.
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@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@dave247 said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
If for home, I assume that the goal is learning ESXi itself? Otherwise, just use a different hypervisor. KVM seems to be the hypervisor of prominence today.
Well, I use ESXi/vSphere at work. I wanted to try out the free version of ESXi at home for S&G, but I may also experiment with other Hypervisors, depending on what will work with my system. I would like to check out KVM.
I would skip ESXi Free, it has so little value even for education. If you use ESXi at work, you already have the exposure to the real thing. The crippled free version is worthless.
I'm not sure I agree with this. If he has Essentials at work, then doesn't the free version of ESXi do everything but have the backup APIs?
Of course if he has Essentials Plus or better, that's another story - and he's need more than one host to get much learning value from those features.
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@dashrender said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@dave247 said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
If for home, I assume that the goal is learning ESXi itself? Otherwise, just use a different hypervisor. KVM seems to be the hypervisor of prominence today.
Well, I use ESXi/vSphere at work. I wanted to try out the free version of ESXi at home for S&G, but I may also experiment with other Hypervisors, depending on what will work with my system. I would like to check out KVM.
I would skip ESXi Free, it has so little value even for education. If you use ESXi at work, you already have the exposure to the real thing. The crippled free version is worthless.
I'm not sure I agree with this. If he has Essentials at work, then doesn't the free version of ESXi do everything but have the backup APIs?
Well, what is the goal? If the goal is to learn, ESXi Free wouldn't make sense since he already knows ESXi and the free version lacks nearly all the features that you need to practice on like vMotion, HA, Backups, etc.
If if you want to learn something new, a different hypervisor is needed. If you want to learn advanced features, a different hypervisor is needed. If you want to use it for production at home and want the best options for that, a different hypervisor is needed.
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@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@dashrender said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@dave247 said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
If for home, I assume that the goal is learning ESXi itself? Otherwise, just use a different hypervisor. KVM seems to be the hypervisor of prominence today.
Well, I use ESXi/vSphere at work. I wanted to try out the free version of ESXi at home for S&G, but I may also experiment with other Hypervisors, depending on what will work with my system. I would like to check out KVM.
I would skip ESXi Free, it has so little value even for education. If you use ESXi at work, you already have the exposure to the real thing. The crippled free version is worthless.
I'm not sure I agree with this. If he has Essentials at work, then doesn't the free version of ESXi do everything but have the backup APIs?
Well, what is the goal? If the goal is to learn, ESXi Free wouldn't make sense since he already knows ESXi and the free version lacks nearly all the features that you need to practice on like vMotion, HA, Backups, etc.
If if you want to learn something new, a different hypervisor is needed. If you want to learn advanced features, a different hypervisor is needed. If you want to use it for production at home and want the best options for that, a different hypervisor is needed.
Also if you want to learn ESXi, VMWare has a thing for that.
https://www.vmware.com/try-vmware/try-hands-on-labs.html -
@jaredbusch said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@dashrender said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@dave247 said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
@reid-cooper said in What are some good true-hardware RAID cards for home server setup?:
If for home, I assume that the goal is learning ESXi itself? Otherwise, just use a different hypervisor. KVM seems to be the hypervisor of prominence today.
Well, I use ESXi/vSphere at work. I wanted to try out the free version of ESXi at home for S&G, but I may also experiment with other Hypervisors, depending on what will work with my system. I would like to check out KVM.
I would skip ESXi Free, it has so little value even for education. If you use ESXi at work, you already have the exposure to the real thing. The crippled free version is worthless.
I'm not sure I agree with this. If he has Essentials at work, then doesn't the free version of ESXi do everything but have the backup APIs?
Well, what is the goal? If the goal is to learn, ESXi Free wouldn't make sense since he already knows ESXi and the free version lacks nearly all the features that you need to practice on like vMotion, HA, Backups, etc.
If if you want to learn something new, a different hypervisor is needed. If you want to learn advanced features, a different hypervisor is needed. If you want to use it for production at home and want the best options for that, a different hypervisor is needed.
Also if you want to learn ESXi, VMWare has a thing for that.
https://www.vmware.com/try-vmware/try-hands-on-labs.htmlEven better.
