[mythtv-users] RAID BTDT's

drescher0110-lists at yahoo.com drescher0110-lists at yahoo.com
Sat Apr 1 10:28:49 UTC 2006


> > On Fri, Mar 31, 2006 at 11:34:00AM -0700, Clayton Huml wrote:
> >> Any BTDT's on hardware raid on Linux?  I am looking at building  
> >> separate box
> >> on linux with a SATA II raid setup with WD3200KS 320GB/16MB cache  
> >> drives on
> >> a Highpoint RocketRaid 2224.
> >
> > That's not a hardware RAID controller. It's just a proprietary  
> > software
> > RAID with a BIOS that can boot the "array". You'd probably be  
> > better off
> > using it as an ordinary SATA controller with a generic Linux software
> > RAID volume across the drives. Or spend a little more money and get a
> > card that does real hardware RAID.
> >
> 
> Not sure what you mean by a "little more money", but any card capable  
> of "real" RAID-5 seems expensive to me.
> 
> Any suggestions for a real RAID card (SATA or PATA) for say under  
> $200US ?

Hardware sata raid less than $200. Better try ebay... 

I believe your best bet is to use software raid and an oridinary sata controller for
several reasons reliability, hot swapping, monitoring, and also it is not
proprietary. Linux software raid has the tools to help you repair your array when
problems happen and at times you can force arrays to mount even if they are in a bad
state. With linux software raid you can add or remove a drive from your array while
your system is booted into linux, I have done this several times on a 2TB software
raid6 array with the array mounted and in use. And linux raid is not tied to any
specific controller so if you ever need to move the array to a new pc you do not
have to use the same exact controller as you did in the previous pc. 

I did not mention speed because both software and bios raid use the system processor
to perform the raid operations so there should not be much if any speed difference.

John


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