We Don't Have the Budget to Save Money
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Hardware RAID is really about improving the human interaction today more than anything. Way easier for people to understand, easier to move between devices, easier to deal with when problems arise and it can rebuild even if the OS is offline.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Hardware RAID is really about improving the human interaction today more than anything. Way easier for people to understand, easier to move between devices, easier to deal with when problems arise and it can rebuild even if the OS is offline.
Got it.
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The problem with software RAID is the raid then become tied to the OS so you need to back up the OS to get it back. Of course you can rebulid them with tools but it's not something Joe Brown is going to do. This can also become a problem with DATA software RAIDs and new OS etc. It can be done, espcially in linux but it takes some use of the command line and people would just rather have it work.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
The problem with software RAID is the raid then become tied to the OS so you need to back up the OS to get it back. Of course you can rebulid them with tools but it's not something Joe Brown is going to do. This can also become a problem with DATA software RAIDs and new OS etc. It can be done, espcially in linux but it takes some use of the command line and people would just rather have it work.
Exactly. There is nothing technically keeping you from your data but junior admins (or people who don't know the OS inside and out) might be really wary of trying to recover data from software RAID.
On the flip side, you can get at your data without the specific hardware. But with hardware RAID you need a compatible replacement card to get back at your data.
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@scottalanmiller How would you do software RAID with something like ESXi?
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Or is that even possible?
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Would you just create virtual drives from each drive on each datastore and create the software RAID at the VM level?
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@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller How would you do software RAID with something like ESXi?
ESXi does not support software RAID and has none built it. Hardware RAID is the only enterprise way to do that with ESXi. ESXi does support some software RAID from the likes of HP and Dell but I would never go that route.
ESXi is the only enterprise hypervisor without built-in software RAID. HyperV uses Windows software RAID, though, which is not good.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller How would you do software RAID with something like ESXi?
ESXi does not support software RAID and has none built it. Hardware RAID is the only enterprise way to do that with ESXi. ESXi does support some software RAID from the likes of HP and Dell but I would never go that route.
ESXi is the only enterprise hypervisor without built-in software RAID. HyperV uses Windows software RAID, though, which is not good.
Ok, I was wondering how that would possibly work. That makes sense.
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@ajstringham said:
Would you just create virtual drives from each drive on each datastore and create the software RAID at the VM level?
No, you would never do this. RAID goes at the bottom of the stack, not high in the stack. You would be creating an abstraction that would almost certainly look like RAID to the OS but would be a single drive underneath leaving you in horrible shape. You could make this "work" but it would be slow, fragile and messy.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
Would you just create virtual drives from each drive on each datastore and create the software RAID at the VM level?
No, you would never do this. RAID goes at the bottom of the stack, not high in the stack. You would be creating an abstraction that would almost certainly look like RAID to the OS but would be a single drive underneath leaving you in horrible shape. You could make this "work" but it would be slow, fragile and messy.
Which is what I figured, but it was the only way I could think it was possible on ESXi that I knew of.
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I have seen a lot of people, especially in labs, looking for VMware vSphere software RAID. I think that they should offer it as it is asked for so often. But I do not see it happening. That would cost a lot of money and shift more risk into VMware's lap for effectively no gain. Requiring people to buy a good, enterprise RAID card and shifting the responsibility and liability of supporting that off to the hardware vendors ultimately makes more sense. And it does not sit all that effectively with their VSAN strategy.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller How would you do software RAID with something like ESXi?
ESXi does not support software RAID and has none built it. Hardware RAID is the only enterprise way to do that with ESXi. ESXi does support some software RAID from the likes of HP and Dell but I would never go that route.
ESXi is the only enterprise hypervisor without built-in software RAID. HyperV uses Windows software RAID, though, which is not good.
Possibly because ESXi is a lot more "barebones" than Hyper-V which even the baremetal hypvervisor has a lot of windows in it still. I'm guessing XenServer uses a Linux kernel unlike ESXi.
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@thecreativeone91 correct. ESXi is the "lightest" of the hypervisors. It is the only one with zero ties to any existing OS. HyperV has no OS code in it, nor does Xen, but both rely on access to a full OS in the "control VM environment" which provides them with software RAID resources in that way. KVM is different than the other three in that it is built into the Linux kernel itself. So while KVM and Xen both use Linux MD RAID to do their software RAID Xen does it through a control environment and KVM does it directly.
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I can't quite understand how companies can't see that when they have a problem and go to a vendor to solve it, 9 times out of 10 the vendor is going to give a "solution" from stuff the vendor sells. It's like wanting to buy a fuel-efficient family car and only talking to a Hummer salesman. Of course they are going to put you in a Hummer, it's all they have to offer!
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@Dominica said:
I can't quite understand how companies can't see that when they have a problem and go to a vendor to solve it, 9 times out of 10 the vendor is going to give a "solution" from stuff the vendor sells. It's like wanting to buy a fuel-efficient family car and only talking to a Hummer salesman. Of course they are going to put you in a Hummer, it's all they have to offer!
And upsell everything so \that you spend more than you need to.. I want to haul groceries,.. not quarry gravel...
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@Dominica said:
I can't quite understand how companies can't see that when they have a problem and go to a vendor to solve it, 9 times out of 10 the vendor is going to give a "solution" from stuff the vendor sells. It's like wanting to buy a fuel-efficient family car and only talking to a Hummer salesman. Of course they are going to put you in a Hummer, it's all they have to offer!
I think the problem is that SMBs don't realize they are talking to the Hummer dealer. They are uneducated in the realities that the vendor only cares about themselves, they don't care about the client (well you know what I mean).
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@Dashrender said:
I think the problem is that SMBs don't realize they are talking to the Hummer dealer. They are uneducated in the realities that the vendor only cares about themselves, they don't care about the client (well you know what I mean).
Yeah, I guess, it's just that I can't understand how they don't know this? I think that non-technical people get so discombobulated when having to make decisions about technology that all logical thinking gets thrown right out the window.
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@Dashrender said:
I think the problem is that SMBs don't realize they are talking to the Hummer dealer. They are uneducated in the realities that the vendor only cares about themselves, they don't care about the client (well you know what I mean).
That's a pretty major business failing. As a normal consumer, you know when you walk into a store and talk to a sales person. This is just a basic human interaction skill. We all know that when we select our store that we have selected the product(s) that we are going to consider buying and we all know that the person that we don't pay that is there is a sales person who is paid to extract money from us.
How would a business person not have these same skills in a business setting? Even kids know this stuff. They know what commercials and sales people and stores are and how they work. When a business person calls a store and doesn't pay for advice they know that they've selected the products by what the store carries and they know that the unpaid person talking to them is a sales person (or a cashier.)
That they are an SMB should not make them lack this insight into human interactions.
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@Dominica said:
Yeah, I guess, it's just that I can't understand how they don't know this? I think that non-technical people get so discombobulated when having to make decisions about technology that all logical thinking gets thrown right out the window.
I would buy that except that they make the decision to select the "store" at their own leisure and decide to contact the store and only then become discombobulated.
