How to create a software raid 5 in linux mint ubuntu. The following sections look at the different implementations, the strengths and weaknesses and their impact to system performance and effectiveness in enhancing data availability. Feb 28, 2018 raid redundant array of independent disks is one of the popular data storage virtualization technology. But the real question is whether you should use a hardware raid solution or a software raid solution. Software raid can take advantage of cpu software raid can be integrated with other storage software encryption, dedup, etc software raid can easily be updated hardware is vendor supported software raid is less expensive hardware raid is. Raid redundant array of independent disks is one of the popular data storage virtualization technology.
Linux software raid has native raid10 capability, and it exposes three possible layout for raid10style array. Feb 27, 2019 provided you have enough machine resources cpu, ram, bus speed, and a good disk controller as a general rule, software raid will outperform hardware raid if the underlying software raid is designed well. Unfortunately sgi did not put xlv support into the linux xfs. Now, lets see how windows raid0 stacks up to actual hardware raid. Here are some tips on raid levels and some feedback on the software vs. It is basically an ata1003 ide controller with a few extra functions and a software driver and bios that handles raid. Its also much more capable and powerful in recovery situations than hardware raid. The problem is your promise raid controller is not a hardware raid controller. Back then, the solution was to use a hardware raid card with a builtin processor that handled the raid calculations offline. We just need to remember that the smallest of the hdds or partitions dictates the arrays capacity. I think in hardware raid, if the hardware fails on the raid, you need the exact copy of the hardware to recover the data, i think. A software raid can also be affected if the host computer is heavily loaded.
Software raid6 vs hardware all i can find is vague, conflicting comments with nothing to back them up. The drives are configured, so that the data is either divided between disks to distribute load, or duplicated to ensure that it can be recovered once a disk fails. Where possible, information should be tagged with the minimum. A raid can be deployed using both software and hardware. Windows software raid and its rebranded version called storage spaces does not meet this last criteria, imo. Linux md raid is exceptionally fast and versatile, but linux io stack is composed of multiple independent pieces that you need to carefully understood to extract maximum performance. What is the difference between a software and hardware raid. Software raid 6 vs hardware all i can find is vague, conflicting comments with nothing to back them up. The linux kernel contains an md driver that allows the raid solution to be completely hardware independent. In a hardware raid setup, the drives connect to a raid controller card inserted in a fast pciexpress pcie slot in a motherboard. Lets start the hardware vs software raid battle with the hardware side. It is generally fine, however, to use windows software raid on simple storage.
Stay away from ich10r type raid solutions fake raid. Scott lowe responds to a techrepublic discussion and one members raid dilemma. It should replace many of the unmaintained and outofdate documents out there such as the software raid howto and the linux raid faq. Mdadm is linux based software that allows you to use the operating system to create and handle raid arrays with ssds or normal hdds. I ran the benchmarks using various chunk sizes to see if that had an effect on either hardware or software configurations for the. Software raid, on the other hand, implements the various raid levels in the kernel disk block device code and. Ive been hoping other people would post with some experience, because im in the middle of a decision and am leaning toward software but just basically fear the unknown.
Favoring hardware raid over software raid comes from a time when. Software vs hardware raid nixcraft nixcraft linux tips. My experience with hardware and fake hardware raid is that as long as you stay with the same vendor, the raid metadata will be recognized ive seen this when moving drives between various hp, areca and lsi hardware raid controllers, and with intel, amd and even via hostraid i was pretty surprised when i connected a 250gb hard drive from some old amd desktop box to a hp g1 microserver, and. Software raid also works with cheaper ide disks as well as scsi disks. With todays fast cpus, software raid performance can excel against hardware raid. While a file server setup to use software raid would likely sport a quad core cpu with 8 or 16gb of ram, the relative differences in performance. Favoring hardware raid over software raid comes from a time when hardware was just not powerful enough to handle software raid processing, along with all the other tasks that it was being used for. Another limitation of linux software raid is expanding raid groups. It is used to improve disk io performance and reliability of your server or workstation. My own tests of the two alternatives yielded some interesting results. Bsd opensolaris and linux raid software drivers are open source. Jul 07, 2009 a redundant array of inexpensive disks raid allows high levels of storage reliability. Oct 30, 2015 while the intel raid controller blows the software raid out of the water on sequential reads, surprisingly the windows software raid was better in nearly every other respect. Aug 14, 2018 raid stands for redundant array of inexpensive disks.
Recently support for these devices was added into the linux kernel but i am not sure how well it. Apr 28, 2017 how to create a software raid 5 on linux. For software raid i used the linux kernel software raid functionality of a system running 64bit fedora 9. The performance of a software based array is dependent on the server cpu performance and load. Software raid on the other hand takes several devices already apparent to the os and just accesses them through special routines, so theyre treated as one device. Software raid can take advantage of cpu software raid can be integrated with other storage software encryption, dedup, etc software raid can easily be updated hardware is vendor supported software raid is less expensive hardware raid is performance isolated, memory isolated 6. Software raid is part of os, so no need to spend extract money. This works the same for larger servers as well as desktop computers. It is a way to virtualize multiple, independent hard disk drives into one or more arrays to improve performance, capacity and reliability. But with budget favoring the software raid, those wanting optimum performance and efficiency of raid will have to go with the hardware raid.
The md driver in the linux kernel is an example of a raid solution that is completely hardware independent. Plus, software raid permits users to reconfigure your arrays without being restricted by the hardware raid controller. Difference between hardware raid and software raid. Dell perc h200 raid firmware dell perc h700 raid firmware hp smartarray 410i raid firmware software raid. Software vs hardware raid performance and cache usage. Nov 15, 2019 hardware raid handles its arrays independently from the host and it still presents the host with a single disk per raid array.
Flexibility is the key advantage of an open source software raid, like linux mdadm. The comparison of these two competing linux raid offerings were done with two ssds of raid0 and raid1 and then four ssds using raid0, raid1, and raid10 levels. In general, software raid offers very good performance and is relatively easy to maintain. Better performance, especially in more complex raid configurations.
Hardware raid and implications for the future duration. What they dont agree on is whether software raid can replace hardware raid in many applications that need access to large volumes of digital data and content quickly. In a hardware raid setup, the drives connect to a special raid controller inserted in a fast pciexpress pcie slot in a motherboard. The raid can be implemented either using a special controller hardware raid, or by an operating system driver software raid. Choosing between software raid and hardware raid depends on what you need to do and how much you want to pay. Hardware raid offers better reliability compared to software raid. I am wondering if anyone has done any benchmarks or tests regarding the performance difference of 2 ssd raid1 on software raid vs hardware raid. A software raid can be prone to data corruption, due to the fault of the raid software or driver that is being used. Solved hardware raid vs software lsi cards spiceworks. Raid software vs hardware raid the unix and linux forums. Boosts system performance for backups and restoration, especially in. The comparison of these two competing linux raid offerings were done with two ssds of raid0 and raid1 and then. Aug 15, 2006 before raid was raid, software disk mirroring raid 1 was a huge profit generator for system vendors, who sold it as an addon to their operating systems. Many external raid drive enclosures have the raid controller card built into the drive enclosure.
Raid stands for redundant array of inexpensive disks. Side by side, intel % change vs software raid 0 intel performance increase over microsoft. The computer has to do all its own processing, so there may be some performance cost there. The performance of a softwarebased array is dependent on the server cpu performance and load. So it looks like hardware raid 10 is the winner for windows setup providing you can replace the card in event of failure, and software raid 10 is a viable option for linux etc. Software raid how to optimize software raid on linux. Aug 25, 2010 so it looks like hardware raid 10 is the winner for windows setup providing you can replace the card in event of failure, and software raid 10 is a viable option for linux etc. Hardware raid will cost more, but it will also be free of software raid s performance. Dell perc h200 hba firmware hp h200 hba firmware from above results we can compute a single disk performance in a raid10 array. To put those sidebyside, heres the difference you can expect when comparing hardware raid0 to software raid0. The performance of a softwarebased array depends on the server cpu performance and load. Apr 05, 2019 on the software side, todays software raid is superfast at least with linux and bsd, extremely flexible, and highly integrated into oss. Reasons for using software raid versus a hardware raid setup.
Jun, 2016 comparing hardware raid vs software raid setups deals with how the storage drives in a raid array connect to the motherboard in a server or pc, and the management of those drives. The software raid works on partition level and it can sometime increase complexity if you mix different partitions and hardware raid. This table summarizes the key differences between hardware. You can benchmark the performance difference between running a raid using the linux kernel software raid and a hardware raid card.
I do agree though, that hardware raid is the best choice on business class windows servers or even important. Software raid how to optimize software raid on linux using. Dec 01, 2014 what they dont agree on is whether software raid can replace hardware raid in many applications that need access to large volumes of digital data and content quickly. Windows software raid vs hardware raid ars technica. With todays faster cpus, software raid outperforms hardware raid. Provided you have enough machine resources cpu, ram, bus speed, and a good disk controller as a general rule, software raid will outperform hardware raid if the underlying software raid is designed well. Mar 06, 2018 it can either be performed in the host servers cpu software raid, or in an external cpu hardware raid. It combines multiple inexpensive, small disk drives into an array of disks in order to provide redundancy, lower latency maximizing the chanc. The reason for this is the performance you can get out of an xlv on xfs. Ive personally seen a software raid 1 beat an lsi hardware raid 1 that was using the same drives. Software raid virtually belongs to operating system. Windows software raid has a bad reputation, performance wise, and even storage space seems not too different. Comparing hardware raid vs software raid setups deals with how the storage drives in a raid array connect to the motherboard in a server or pc, and the management of those drives. It uses hardware raid controller card that handles the raid tasks transparently to the operating system.
Hardware raid costs more, but will be free of software raid s performance limitations. Software vs hardware raid performance and cache usage server. All of todays operating systems have some form of software raid. Want to get an idea of what speed advantage adding an expensive hardware raid card to your new server is likely to give you.
I do agree though, that hardware raid is the best choice. Before raid was raid, software disk mirroring raid 1 was a huge profit generator for system vendors, who sold it as an addon to their. Choosing between software raid and hardware raid depends on what you. In testing both software and hardware raid performance i employed six 750gb samsung sata drives in three raid configurations 5, 6, and 10. This is a method of improving the performance and reliability of your storage media by using multiple drives. It seems that no matter if you use a hardware or a software raid controller, you should expect to lose performance when youre duplicating every write, which makes sense. Comparing hardware raid vs software raid deals with how the. These layouts have different performance characteristics, so it is important to choose the right layout for your workload. On the software side, todays software raid is superfast at least with linux and bsd, extremely flexible, and highly integrated into oss. Software raid, as you might already know, is usually builtin on your os and unlike a hardware raid, you will need to spend a little extra on a controller card. With the advent of hardware raid systems the battle was joined until the hardware array emerged victorious. We list the pros and cons of hardware vs software raid to help you decide.
Soft possibly the longest running battle in raid circles is which is faster, hardware raid or software raid. When running basic io tests ddoflagdirect 5k to 100g files, hdparam t, etc. All of todays operating systems have some form of software raid built into them os x, windows 710 and linux. Heavy processing can cause some pieces of data to be delayed by a small amount of time. Two disks, sata 3, hardware raid 0 hardware raid 0. In my case the setup will be used for a website doing heavy io readwriteimages with a big db. On the software side, todays software raid is superfast at least with linux and. Or, go on ebay and look for old hardware raid controllers.
I have scoured through articles written about tuning software and i have used linux software raid for over 10 years. Jul 06, 2011 reasons for using software raid versus a hardware raid setup. We can use full disks, or we can use same sized partitions on different sized drives. Linux software raid mdadm testing is a continuation of the earlier standalone benchmarks. A redundant array of inexpensive disks raid allows high levels of storage reliability. Or raid 1 if you only need the speedcapacity of a single pair. To recover your data, all you need is another storage server with the same os. Software vs hardware raid nixcraft linux tips, hacks.
This site is the linux raid kernel list communitymanaged reference for linux software raid as implemented in recent version 4 kernels and earlier. May 24, 2005 scott lowe responds to a techrepublic discussion and one members raid dilemma. Ive been hoping other people would post with some experience, because im in the middle of a decision and am leaning toward software but. Choosing between software raid and hardware raid depends on what you need to do and cost.
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