[ubuntu-za] Virtual Machine Server

[Deon Spengler]

> Are you saying that mdadm ("software RAID") is faster than this
> particular RAID card or that the speed difference is not significant?
> 
> Looking at the spec again I see it's a SATA card, which probably
> eliminates hot-swapping of hard drives, which is probably one of the
> main benefits of having hardware RAID.  

I am saying that under the right conditions mdadm is faster than
hardware RAID, if one is doing RAID 5 or 6, hardware RAID will always be
faster than mdadm. There is almost no overhead with RAID 0, 1 or 10
while using mdadm. MDADM RAID 10 in most cases will be faster than
hardware RAID. MDADM does support hot-swapping with SATA Disc's and
online array rebuilds, it can also send you an email as well if a disc
fails in the RAID set.

> Is there anything else I need to install from ubuntu server edition
> other than KVM (from tasksel) for the above?  i.e. Do I have to add
> libvirt after installation?

I cant remeber if libvirt-bin is installed by default when one selects KVM from the tasksel.
I will try can check later today and let you know.

> Just when I thought it was going to be easy!!  Any documentation/links
> you can refer me to so I can start preparing myself?

Here is the link for the virtio driver for windows with the required
links for the info on how to get the drivers to work with Windows 2008
64-bit.

http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/WindowsGuestDrivers/Download_Drivers

Regards

Deon