Is this a *real* RAID controller or a 'fake' (BIOS/Software/MB) RAID
controller? If it is a real controller are you sure there is no Linux
driver for it? (Esp. since you are using Ubuntu!) If it is a
software/BIOS/MB RAID controller the performance is going to be really
bad -- these controllers are really only meant for home systems and not
really for true servers.
This is an Addonics controller card that uses Silicon
Image 3124 chip. We have a RAID tower housing 12 hard
drives.
I'd have to setup mdadm on Ubuntu, which I've done
before and was not impressed. The Windows RAID system
we have is much more easier to maintain.
Oh, you mean you have to actually use your keyboard? How dreadfull...
Not really. The GUI-based software for this controller
card provides a lot of configuration options and
documentation, something that is not so intuitive in
mdadm. Its not just about using a dreadful keyboard,
be real.
Do you mean to say that the files local to the Ubuntu *server* are not on
a RAID array?
No. They are not as important and the data can be
quickly restored from backups.
This sort of 'game' (mounting files from one 'server' on another server
and then re-exporting them), is not *specific* to Samba. See what
happens when you try to NFS export file systems mounted as nfs file
systems (although I expect nfsd/mountd would refuse to let you do that
in the first place).
There are several problems:
It tends to confuse the server(s). File serving software (Samba, NFSD,
etc.) really expect the data they are serving to be local (yes, using a
NAS or something like that is a little different) and are written to
optimal to work that way.
It causes lots of network traffic: every I/O operation causes two
batches of network traffic and implies two sets of network channels: one
set between the machine with the physical disks (the XP box) and the
'server' (the Ubuntu box), and a *second* set of network channels
between the 'server' (the Ubuntu box) and the final client(s) (the
client MS-Windows machine(s)). If this is on one physical network (if
the 'server' (the Ubuntu box) only has one NIC), then the you have lots
of network collisions, which means your network thoughput will truely
suck (eg network timeouts, dropped/lost packets, etc.).
I expect that 'before' you 'got by' by luck. What might be happening
now is that some fix to Samba is biting you or maybe you are getting
network I/O errors (timeouts?) because of what I described in the
paragraph above.
What you are doing is not really going to work in the long term. You
either need to:
1) Buy a real, supported RAID card for the Ubuntu system.
2) Live with mdadm
3) Pay for licenses for the XP system.
I agree with this and will probably have to begin
doing one of the above. I was just hoping someone
would know an exact cause and fix for my situation
without having to redo infrastructure.
Thanks for your comments.
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