Uh, sorry, I had thought that discussion was RAID-5 vs. RAID-1? If someone is running RAID-5, I assume that it's hardware based. If so, then that person could use the same hardware to configure a RAID-1 array instead - so why even bother with software RAID then?
If the discussions is software RAID-1 vs. no-raid, then the answer is: Sure, software RAID is a cost effective solution if the system has sufficient head-room to deal with whatever possible overhead that may cause. However, if we are talking about a machine that is already taxed, then I would suggest plugging in a RAID controller instead of adding software RAID to the mix. I have several (older) systems running Windows 2000 RAID-1. At least ONE of the servers I later upgraded to Hardware RAID. I can't say that I've noticed any difference (but then again, I have not run benchmarks and the server was not really taxed before either.) >From what I understand, there are many factors involved and it much depends on your systems configuration. CPU availability is critical. A server that is already CPU taxed may suffer if software RAID is added. Having the drives split on two SCSI controllers should also help with software RAID-1. Doing software RAID-1 with a master/slave ATA drive, however, may slow things down. There may not be a single answer... Best Regards Andy -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Goran Jovanovic Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 02:05 PM To: sniffer@SortMonster.com Subject: RE: Re[2]: [sniffer] Moving Sniffer to Declude/SmarterMail OK that is for hardware level RAID. I had thought that you would offset the extra processing time by being able to write less to each drive. Now does anyone know how much overhead Windows 2000/2003 software RAID 1 on dynamic disks produces over hardware level RAID 1? This E-Mail came from the Message Sniffer mailing list. For information and (un)subscription instructions go to http://www.sortmonster.com/MessageSniffer/Help/Help.html
