> From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon May 31 00:47:50 1999
>
> > I just returned an DPT 2044UW controller and caching module,
> > performance was AWFUL. Before I buy a ICP Vortex controller, I
> > wanted to see if anyone knows about any other alternatives.
>
> I thought somoene might know how the performance of the software raid
> support is versus (the typical) hardware raid?
>
> Hmm.. Maybe there's even a generalization that can be made?
In general, I think the software RAID functions well. I've had the
chance to use both RAID 0 and RAID 1 implementations. However, I
don't think it's ready for prime time for non-wizards yet. There
are still a number of pitfalls like:
* It's very difficult to boot from a RAID partition.
* There are no mature tools available to automatically handle automatic
failover to spares, rebuild the RAID, etc.
* Getting/installing the latest kernel patches can be confusing.
* Much of the documentation is out of date and hard to find.
This is certainly not a recommendation to avoid software RAID. I
use it on a few of my systems and it works well. I simply think
some of the "creature comforts" need to improve a bit before I
would implement it on a production system over a supported hardware
RAID controller. When the first 2 items are a bit more polished
I'll take another look at using software RAID in "high availability"
configurations.
I also agree with others in this thread and say that software RAID
seems to smoke the hardware solutions in terms of raw performance if
you've got a fast system.
Cheers,
Chris
--
Christopher Mauritz
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
