On 27 Jun 2002, Joon Guillen wrote: > We are planning to buy a couple of servers to be used primarily as www + > database servers [ie. a content management system]. We now need a > (hardware) RAID system for these. Unfortunately, SCSI RAID systems are > a bit steep on price, and I was thinking of using IDE RAID instead (we > need only 2 disks per server anyway). I don't know much about RAID yet, > so my question is, will the IDE RAID system work well with Linux? Does > the kernel support it? Or, is RAID completely transparent from Linux?
You can go for software raid or hardware raid. Cost effective (free!) is software raid of course. The downside of software raid is very limited tools and features. You want to use layered volumes like raid0+1 or raid1+0? you can't do that with linux software raid. Linux LVM to the rescue? It can only do striping, no mirroring! So you have to use software raid + LVM to simulate raid 1+0 or raid0+1. Hardware raid is best if you have less technical skills to begin with. And even then, less features and flexibity you encounter. They are simply no match for Veritas Volume Manager. You will nod if you have actually used it :) The only software that I have seen that has no competition! > Additionaly, would you recommend IDE RAID at all, provided our current > server's purposed function, or would it really be necessary to get SCSI > instead? Well, if you are really sure that you have a maximum of 2 disks per server and don't see any growth of disk space in the future,then you don't need IDE RAID in the 1st place. If you want more diskspace, mirror and replace the HDD to a higher capacity and ur done. If you see growth, want to add IDE HDD in the future, and value ur data, then linux software raid/or hardware ide raid make sense. ppl in the list recommend 3ware. It's probably good. regards, --- Andre M. Varon, SCSA http://andre.lasaltech.com _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
