[LUAU] Favorite SATA or PATA RAID controllers

[Julian Cowley]

On Wed, 10 Feb 2010, R. Scott Belford wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 4:30 PM, Clifton Royston <cliftonr at lava.net> wrote:
>> On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 12:22:20PM -1000, Brian Chee wrote:
>> > I need to mirror (RAID 1) and was wondering about the collective option
>> on
>> > PCI RAID controllers....
>> >
>> > These are going into 1RU SuperMicro machines that tend to run hot....so
>> that
>> > is a bit of a consideration. I¹d like to use the same RAID controller for
>> > both Windows 2003 Server AND Debian Linux both...
>> >
>> > /brian chee
>>
>>   Even though you're looking for Linux supported cards, there's a thread
>> on freebsd-stable right now you might want to look through, discussing
>> reliable inexpensive SATA controllers.
>>
>>  Thread title is: "hardware for home use large storage"
>>
>>  For BSD or Linux machines, I tend to think you're just as well off
>> with software RAID, at least until you get to fairly high-end systems
>> (e.g. external enclosures with their own RAID controllers.) If the card
>> has to do RAID under Windows, though, hardware RAID may be the only
>> reasonable option.
>>
>
> In answer to the original question, I use High Point SATA RAID controllers
> when the need arises, and I depend on 3WARE for ATA RAID support.  Unless
> you intend to benefit from the battery on board a RAID card while maximizing
> all CPU cycles, there is rarely a good case for a single RAID card.  I used
> to run Bonnie++ tests on both, and the NCQ feature of SATA 3.0 and SAS
> drives close any lingering gaps.
>
> Cliff's suggestion is supported by multiple platforms, and it is so hard to
> beat the performance of a Software RAID10 array.  Software RAID allows for
> multiple hot spares, array repair without rebooting, and the admin and
> reporting tools once found only in RAID cards.  If you are going to use
> redundant HW RAID cards, or keep a cold spare on site, and maximize all CPU
> cycles for your applications, then your needs likely necessitate the RAM,
> CPU, and Battery of a RAID controller or two.

Here is a link I keep on-hand to remind myself why I prefer software RAID. 
To me, the benefits of software RAID far outweigh the drawbacks.

- Linux: Why software RAID? by Jeff Garzik (one of the Linux kernel
   developers who specializes in writing SATA drivers)

   http://linux.yyz.us/why-software-raid.html

It has saved our butts at least once, too.  One time, a machine failed on 
us, and I needed to transfer the physical drives from one machine to 
another.  The failed machine had a proprietary 3ware card on the 
motherboard, and the other one didn't, so I was expecting the worst. 
Fortunately we had configured the disks as JBOD with Linux MD RAID and I 
was able to transfer the drives to the new machine and get them running 
quickly without having to buy a new 3ware card.

To add more to the mix, here's a comparison of hardware and software
RAID on Linux:

- Benchmarking hardware RAID vs. Linux kernel software RAID

   http://www.linux.com/news/hardware/servers/8222-benchmarking-hardware-raid-vs-linux-kernel-software-raid