>> It's time to switch hosts. I'm looking at the following: >> >> Dual Xeon E5-2690 >> 32GB RAM >> 4x SSD RAID10 >> >> This would be my first experience with multiple CPUs and RAID. Advice >> on any of the following would be greatly appreciated. >> >> Is the Gentoo Software RAID + LVM guide the best place for RAID >> install info if I'm not using LVM and I'll have a hardware RAID >> controller? >> >> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86+raid+lvm2-quickinstall.xml > > No need. Hardware RAID is handled on the RAID controller. Gentoo won't > even know about it.
I had no idea. How awesome. So the entire array shows up as /dev/sda when using a real hardware controller? Just enable an extra kernel config option or two and it works? >> Can I count on this system to keep running if I lose an SSD? > > Yes. RAID10 both stripes and mirrors. So you can lose one, and it's > definitely mirrored on another drive. Now you have three drives. If you > lose another one, is it mirrored? Well, maybe, if you're lucky. There's > a 2/3 chance that the second drive you lose will be one of the remaining > mirror pair. > > Recommendation: add a hot spare to the system. Would the hot spare be in case I lose 2 drives at once? Isn't that extraordinarily unlikely? Are modern SSDs reliable enough to negate the need for mirroring or do they still crap out? - Grant
