Re: Hardware vs. Software Raid Speed

Marc Perkel
2006-08-23T17:55:48Z

Tejun Heo wrote:
> Andre Tomt wrote:
>> Marc Perkel wrote:
>>> Running Linux on an AMD AM2 nVidia chip ser that supports Raid 0
>>> striping on the motherboard. Just wondering if hardware raid (SATA2)
>
> SATA2 has nothing to do with hardware RAID.
>
>>> is going to be faster that software raid and why?
>>
>> Beeing a consumer type board (AM2), the "raid on the motherboard" is
>> in 99.999% of the cases just software raid implemented in their
>> Windows drivers, a bootup setup screen plus some BIOS magic to get
>> the OS booting.
>
> And, yeah, they're all software RAID. Also, there isn't much to be
> gained from making RAID0/1 hardware. The software overhead isn't that
> big. For RAID5, having XOR done in hardware helps.
>

Thanks - I suspected that Raid 0 didn't gain anything in hardware unless
they provided additional buffering or something but I just thought I'd
ask in case there was something I was overlooking.