https://i.imgur.com/pKIH8je.png

@scottalanmiller said in Matching Drives for RAID:

*Under the Hood: RAID arrays effectively use all of their devices in lock step. Whether you have two drives or eighty in your array, all of them go and look for one block of data together and they all way for the slowest drive in the array to return its block before continuing on. When all drives are identical, they all read and write at the same time and we basically get full performance from every device.

A minor change to be more accurate

*Under the Hood: RAID arrays effectively use all of their devices in lock step. Whether you have two drives or eighty in your array, all of them go and look for one block of data together and they all wait for the slowest drive in the array to return its block before continuing on. When all drives are identical makes and models, the differences are much smaller between them and we get closer to full performance from every device.

Of course, in more modern systems, the use of advanced LVMs instead of older partitions makes this a little more flexible so that more control over the process can exist. But all of the core problems still exist.

Some vendors try to market this mechanism as "RAID virtualization", which isn't a completely crazy name due to the layers of abstraction, but it makes it sound valuable when, in reality, it is not. RAID virtualization when used for the purpose of enabling hot or live RAID array growth is generally a good idea. Used as a kludge to enable bad ideas, it remains bad.

Can we get some tags on this post?

URE is one I would love to see added.
Thanks

@Dashrender said in Windows 10 Mobile Cannot reinstall Skype Preview:

add some tags to the post to make it easier to find in the future.

I thought I did. Must have fallen off. I should use better sticky tape

@JaredBusch said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:

@scottalanmiller said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:

@dr.funkenstein said in Storage Provisioning For a Single Hyper-V Server Setup:

I installed Hyper-V Core, and I'm facing a though time configuring... The server is at a remote location, and connect to the remote network via VPN, and am trying to use tools like Server Manager, Hyper-V manager, and even 5nine.. Server Manager itself works fine, but when I launch tools (such a Computer Management) from within Server Manager, I get random access denied messages .. Even after adding it as a Trusted host

Why are you doing things over a VPN? Stop doing that, that's likely your problem.

Even better, this sounds like a MSP office he is working from, so they probably have all these VPN connections to various clients open.

That's super scary, MSPs using VPNs is how malware is going to suddenly take over the world. Cross contamination all over the place.

@ntozier said in Buffalo NAS Return Policy Review:

Maybe the person you spoke to didn't realize if was just for a single drive? I mean I find the some non-technical users think of a Tower as the "hard drive". 🙂

Here is a quote from him: "And that was for the entire NAS with two 4TB drives (I only needed one drive)!!!"

@Dashrender said in Announcing the Death of RAID:

@scottalanmiller said in Announcing the Death of RAID:

What you are thinking of is my recommendation for supported drives that are part of the system itself if you are going for a warranty supported system like from Dell or HPE. Bringing your own drives would push you to vendors like SuperMicro where you can mix and match for the best performance, cost and features.

I want to ask why we can't/shouldn't use consumer class drives in a Dell or HPE server, but I think the answer might be - because if you're paying for that level of support, why are you not going all in?

Is that right?

i.e. if you want to run your own performance/cost factors, you're better off starting with a SuperMicro, is that what you're saying?

Yes. That's what I mean.

One of the confusing pieces here is that Linux actually does things more clearly but the Windows world is so confusing that if you carry that confusion into the Linux world, it makes things harder. Windows rarely uses or discloses the names of their product components. So Windows Software RAID is used to describe part of the Windows OS. But what if you have software RAID on Windows that is not Windows Software RAID? Windows Admins typically have no good terminology to discuss this, even though it is common. They just.... don't know what's going on and don't document it. But in Linux, we have the terms on hand all of the time (MD, ZFS, whatever.) So the Linux side isn't as bad as it seems, but if you are used to a weird blend of generic names being used as if they are specifics from the Windows world and assume that the Linux world is just as crazy, then it seems crazy.

@tjatwood109 said in ZFS is Perfectly Safe on Hardware RAID:

@scottalanmiller

Thanks - I will proceed without using ZFS - I prefer hardware RAID.

Tim

ZFS is perfectly fine with hardware RAID, if you like ZFS' features otherwise (like zsend is nice) then there's no reason to avoid it. If you don't plan to use any unique features, then XFS is my "go to" choice by default. Very fast, very stable.

@coliver said in Why the SMB Still Needs Hardware RAID:

@scottalanmiller said in Why the SMB Still Needs Hardware RAID:

@coliver said in Why the SMB Still Needs Hardware RAID:

@scottalanmiller said in Why the SMB Still Needs Hardware RAID:

@coliver said in Why the SMB Still Needs Hardware RAID:

@scottalanmiller said in Why the SMB Still Needs Hardware RAID:

@coliver said in Why the SMB Still Needs Hardware RAID:

@travisdh1 said in Why the SMB Still Needs Hardware RAID:

@dafyre said in Why the SMB Still Needs Hardware RAID:

@scottalanmiller said in Why the SMB Still Needs Hardware RAID:

The most common RAIN approach that I see is taking all disks in the pool, noting their nodal presence and using mirroring to distribute the data so that data mirrors never go to the same disk and/or the same node. So a little like a networked RAID 1E but with more flexibility and the option to add nodal separation and performance testing so that data moves to where it is used.

Are you aware of any open source RAIN systems?

Gluster and Swift

I think Ceph and Lustre may be two others.

Lustre is RAIN, but is closed. Gluster was the open replacement for Lustre.

Just a quick search showed that Lustre was GPL 2.0, not sure if that is new or not.

Oh wow, must be new. It was crazy expensive in 2006 when we were really investigating it. That's awesome.

Ah looks like it went open source in 2010.

Oh cool, so I remember things well then. I'm just out of date. Gluster probably forced their hand, why would anyone consider Lustre when it was closed source? The answer was probably... they wouldn't and didn't.

Yep, I'd assume that was the case. Especially when it is a such a specific, and at the time, niche market.

And when Gluster went directly after them, even in name.

@scottalanmiller And Starwind ships their ready nodes armed with RAID https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-hyperconverged-appliance so i think they still keep doing RAID and i am sure it is for a reason some of them I've mentioned above.

@scottalanmiller said in SAN Products Short List:

@BBigford and @zuphzuph were asking about this and I figured we should talk about it here. If you are shopping for a SAN, what is your vendor short list?

How does PureStorage fit into all of this?

SuperMicro recommends against RAID on the SuperDOM / SATA DOM modules but fails to explain why:

https://www.supermicro.com/datasheet/datasheet_SuperDOM.pdf

Ohh they updated it!

@sn said in Virtual Data Room recommendations:

@scottalanmiller Technically "virtual data room" is similar to file server and primarily accessed over a browser session. In addition to the standard file server features, it may also include features like-

Bulk watermarking of documents "View only" mode for documents Real time activity logs Remote document shredding Fenced view to protect documents from someone taking a photo of the monitor with document open Q & A section and live discussions etc.

From a usage perspective, our "virtual data room" is shared between a bunch of firms (like insurers, lawyers, auditors, investors, engineering and construction companies etc) with different access levels who are working towards the completion of a specific project which may take 2-5 years to complete (please note, we are into wind/solar farm development). So I surely do not want all these guys on my file server doing crazy things like creating users and modifying originals.

At the moment, I am thinking of evaluating https://www.idealsvdr.com/virtual-data-room-features/ to see if they are worth switching from my current provider.

Interesting. Seems like a mistake in terms. Why does being available over "web" make it "virtual". Seems like a marketing term. I don't see anyone but Citrix using it, and Citrix has a trend of totally making up and misusing terms. Citrix' use of "virtual" is the industry standard for "wrong". I have a feeling that this isn't a legitimate term. Looking at the wikipedia entry for it, it looks very suspect. And the definition doesn't feel right - a specific access technology for something so general wouldn't be appropriate. And the lack of other products or vendors using the term for something so common and normal is suspicious. For example, Sharepoint and Alfresco have been doing this for forever, but never use the term.

This is the mobo that this will be connected to:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5000P/X7DB8.cfm