[mythtv-users] 8 Port SATA PCIx card

[David Brodbeck]

Boleslaw Ciesielski wrote:
> Gareth Glaccum wrote:
>> The 3ware is really worth the extra price. You will have a GOOD 
>> gui/webpage to administer the raid array, rather than needing to do it 
>> from within the OS.
> 
> Webpage? How does this card connect to the network without the OS? Does 
> it have its own ethernet port?

The 3ware cards use a daemon called 3dm2 to do this.  So technically 
it's not "outside the OS," but it does mean you don't have to use the 
command line if you don't want to.  Personally I prefer the tw_cli 
command line utility.

For real "outside the OS" RAID management you can use the 3ware BIOS by 
hitting Alt-3 during boot, but that's rarely necessary except for 
initial setup of a bootable array.

Having used both, I can only see two clear advantages to a hardware RAID 
card over software RAID, assuming CPU usage and bus bandwidth are not 
limitations:

- The 3ware hardware RAID cards fully support hot swapping failed 
drives.  My personal experience is that this does not work with normal 
SATA cards under Linux.

- Booting from a hardware RAID is much easier to set up, and you don't 
have to wonder if GRUB and the system BIOS will do the right thing if 
the primary drive in a mirror fails.

Neither of these are huge advantages for home use, since most home users 
would just shut the system down to swap out a failed drive.