From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EB8M6-00038G-UB for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Fri, 02 Sep 2005 10:01:07 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with SMTP id j829vDZo006440; Fri, 2 Sep 2005 09:57:13 GMT Received: from moa.ifa.hawaii.edu (moa.IfA.Hawaii.Edu [128.171.168.48]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id j829vC9T003548 for ; Fri, 2 Sep 2005 09:57:12 GMT Received: by moa.ifa.hawaii.edu (Postfix, from userid 1041) id 9EF2A3FB62; Fri, 2 Sep 2005 00:02:24 -1000 (HST) Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 00:02:24 -1000 From: Joshua Hoblitt To: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-amd64] Upgrading to Raid Message-ID: <20050902100224.GA31184@ifa.hawaii.edu> References: <20050901034637.38BC91B8BB@localhost.comcast.net> <43169348.1060109@albrookdata.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="SLDf9lqlvOQaIe6s" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <43169348.1060109@albrookdata.com> X-Archives-Salt: 49b97e4d-6761-4dad-a77f-f819d82d1668 X-Archives-Hash: cbfaf3035955fe52e7d3c814959fa1c9 --SLDf9lqlvOQaIe6s Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I have a large number (more then a dozen) 3Ware 8500 and 9500 cards. The majority of these are 12-port SATA cards with RAID 5 volumes on them. Three quick observations: * Software RAID 5 on Linux WILL NOT remap bad blocks/sectors like a hardware RAID controller. If you care about your data, software RAID simply isn't an option. * The RAID 5 performance of 3Ware controllers is terrible. The 9500 series cards can push 50-55MB/s with xfs and in the neighborhood of 45MB/s with ext3 (with an enlarged journal, etc.) for sequential writes, random I/O is even worse. The 8500 cards are about 10% slower compared to the 9500 once you fill up the on-card cache. * Neither xfs or ext3 are reliable on volumes greater then 2TB. Nor can fdisk even partition them (but lvm2 can handle them). Cheers, -J -- On Thu, Sep 01, 2005 at 12:36:08AM -0500, Francisco Perez wrote: > Scott, > I have a 3Ware Escalade 4 chaneel hardware raid controller running raid= =20 > 10. Here are my thoughts: The card itself was $175.00 and the 4 250GB= =20 > brives were $150 bucks a piece, so the cost is considerable. If you are= =20 > only going to have two disks mirrored, you can get the two channel card= =20 > and two drives and mirror them which is obviously less money. My system= =20 > is a Tyan Transport GX-28 with 2 Opteron 246's and originally I had the= =20 > drives on the onboard controller. First, there is a very noticable=20 > increase in performance going from the integrated (software) raid=20 > controller to the hardware raid controller. For my percieved needs it=20 > was definitely worth the money. Second, its a nice reassurance to know= =20 > that if a drive (or even two drives) fails the hardware controller can=20 > restore the array by popping in a new disk without me having to do=20 > much...I'm not sure if this is the case with the integrated or linux=20 > raid. With the hardware controller, if I wanted a bit more storage=20 > space, I could have chosen to make a raid five array, something that as= =20 > far as I know is unavailable in both integrated and Linux array (at=20 > least now without a significant performance hit.) Hope that helps. >=20 > Frank >=20 > scotthathcock@comcast.net wrote: > >I currently have an ASUS K8V Deluxe system with an 80GB SATA drive. It > >used to have a old 10GB PATA disk for M$ dual boot. That disk died and > >was interfering with boot, so it's in the trash.=20 > > > >The dead disk reminded me of the pain I will suffer if I loose my linux > >system. Even with backups of my home dir, which I'm not as good about as > >I should be, a full fresh install would be a pain. Thus, I am > >considering Raid. > > > >Does anyone have experience with RAID on this Board?=20 > >Is the Via or Promise controller better for this?=20 > >Is there a good Howto on migrating from a non Raid disk to Raid? I > >recall seeing one but can't find it now. > >Am I wasting time and money? Should I just do a better job of backup? Is > >there a resource on what to backup to allow a fast regeneration (or > >duplication) of an existing gentoo system? > > > >Finally, thanks for the great distribution. I use a commercial distro at > >work and I am much happier with Gentoo. :) > > > >Scott > --=20 > gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list >=20 --SLDf9lqlvOQaIe6s Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFDGCMwWa2BU+b7tU0RAs9AAKCDsgbyE5ykhSusJcC049VfbhrhfACeNUH3 vxptqw/ex+oCwaDyiX1C0lw= =M4C6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --SLDf9lqlvOQaIe6s-- -- gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list