[Box Backup] RAID - software instead of hardware?

[Ben Summers]

On 6 Jul 2004, at 19:37, Garry Glendown wrote:

> I was wondering what the advantage of using Box Backup's built in RAID 
> capability is other than now cost for a hardware raid controller ... 
> while I'm impressed by Box Backup's features and quality, I would 
> think that a hardware raid is both better from performance and 
> reliability point of view, and less prone to trouble due to hardware 
> failure ...

Well... the advantages you get are

Formatting -- no proprietary or odd disc layouts, you could recover on 
any machine with enough IDE channels (with hardware raid you tend to 
need exactly the right RAID card and drivers -- what happens if the 
card breaks?)

Efficiency for streaming files on busy servers -- eventually it will 
stream to one disc, and then RAIDify to the others in the background. 
This gives a big performance boost, allowing slower discs to be used.

OpenBSD support and portability -- it'll work on every platform, 
especially where hardware support of detection of failures isn't that 
good. (Check what happens with your favourite hardware RAID when a disc 
breaks. Does it just sound an audio alarm? Is that any good in a remote 
data centre?)

Easy integration into my error reporting system.

It's cheaper, easier to deploy, and much less depending on hardware 
config (think how you'd do a massive deployment, adding new hardware 
over a few years)


I am curious as to why you think general hardware RAID is going to be 
better than application specific RAID. Especially with regard to what 
happens if the RAID card breaks after it's been discontinued.


>
> What's the other users' opinion on this?
>
I'd be interested to know too.

Ben