Hardware vs software raid

[Michael Zoet]

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Diego Xirinachs wrote:
>> I decided to get a dell r310 but I dont know if I should get the
>> hardware raid or just configure software raid on the server.

It really depends what you want to achieve. If good performance is an
issue for you, you should (or better must) use a good hardware raid.

I administer several Dell Servers (R200, R410 and R510) for 3
companies. Some of them have good hardware Raid controllers (H700 or
up) others not. The servers with the cheap ones I use MD Software
RAID, because the controller performs so poor in the Hardware RAID
setup, that this is no good. On the other hand where the servers have
a good Hardware RAID, it would be a shame not to use it. The
performance improvements are big.

Several weeks ago I had to go in production use for an new online
browser game. The setup (for 2 to 3 gaing instances) consist of a Dell
R410 with Linux software RAID running a web server and as the backend
a R510 with hardware RAID as the database server. Even when we have
1500 simultaneous users the R410 perfoms very good. If we use software
raid on the R510, the performance drops down badly.

On the other hand I have 2 Dells as firewall servers where I use
software raid and it works like a charm. The 2 firewall server are
mission critical for the involved companies and it is much more
important to have the possibilty to change quickly the corresponding
hardware. So software raid is a must ;-).

By the way there is a really good Linux Dell mailinglist from Dell! If
you have a Dell Server with Linux on it, this is a great source of
information. (Hardware and Software related.)

Michael
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