From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "H. Peter Anvin" Subject: Re: Linux: Why software RAID? Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 22:25:37 -0700 Message-ID: <44ED3851.7040202@zytor.com> References: <44ED1E41.40606@garzik.org> <44ED3723.3090308@nortel.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <44ED3723.3090308@nortel.com> Sender: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Chris Friesen Cc: Jeff Garzik , Linux Kernel , Linux RAID Mailing List , marc@perkel.com List-Id: linux-raid.ids Chris Friesen wrote: > Jeff Garzik wrote: > >> But anyway, to help answer the question of hardware vs. software RAID, >> I wrote up a page: >> >> http://linux.yyz.us/why-software-raid.html > > Just curious...with these guys > (http://www.bigfootnetworks.com/KillerOverview.aspx) putting linux on a > PCI NIC to allow them to bypass Windows' network stack, has anyone ever > considered doing "hardware" raid by using an embedded cpu running linux > software RAID, with battery-backed memory? > > It would theoretically allow you to remain feature-compatible by > downloading new kernels to your RAID card. > Yes. In fact, I have been told by several RAID chip vendors that their customers are *strongly* demanding that their chips be able to run Linux md (and still use whatever hardware offload features.) So it's happening. -hpa