Re: Linux SATA RAID FAQ

J. Ryan Earl
2004-08-13T23:31:49Z

Willy Tarreau wrote:

>I like it. It's fairly simple. I'm always amazed how many people do really
>believe that these cards provide hardware RAID !!! The problem is when you
>ask a reseller to add a real hardware RAID card in a system you purchase
>and you end up with a cheap silicon image... It happened to us once and it's
>not funny at all.
>
On the brightside, md raid5 is often faster than hardware raid5. At
least on the 7000 and 8000 series of 3ware hardware; the 9000 series
looks promising though. I haven't seen megaraid SATA numbers, and I
don't know what happened to the SX8.

When the libata Marvell drivers come out, you'll have a cheap upgrade
path for PCI-X boards if you want fast md raid:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/DAC-SATA-MV8.cfm
$100 to add 8 unbottlenecked SATA ports to your server motherboard.

-ryan