Richard Chang wrote:
Joe Landman wrote:
Its a software RAID implementation pretending to be a hardware RAID
implementation. They are rarely if ever as good as MD. Many of them
in Linux will invoke dm (the "other" RAID engine) as dm has "support"
for fake-raid. Note that we have lost data (multiple times) with
dm+fake-raid in testing, so we don't recommend its use in important
machines (ones which you can't afford to lose). This could be due to
bad drivers for the chips in question, but we aren't taking chances.
Hello Joe,
I would like to know specifically what models of LSI boxes are software
RAID implementation pretending to be a hardware RAID implementation. I
Hi Richard:
This I cannot tell you, as I don't have a comprehensive list of what
uses what driver. I'd suggest looking at what drivers it loads for
disks when it comes up. If dmraid comes up *and* enumerates devices,
you have a strong probability that it is a fake-raid. This is not to
say dmraid is bad. Again, its the underlying driver or chipset that we
often run into problems with.
have a few LSI boxes where I work, and your post made me think if they
really are Hardware RAID implementation.
I have the LSI 2822(old), LSI 4900 & also LSI 7900 controllers based
storage.
How do we differentiate between the software and hardware RAID
implementations. ANY visual difference?, are they identifiable?.
Rarely. Fake raid will generally not have any RAM cache or battery
backup capability.
In some instances, fake raid is *ok* for OS drives (RAID1 only), if the
bios is smart enough to use it correctly, the underlying fake raid
driver is relatively stable, and you have reasonable disks. Otherwise,
mdadm works great, though you have to patch Redhat/Centos, as they, by
default, use dmraid for the moment. Later model Fedora appear to have
switched to MD raid (after 9 from what I saw, last time I played with it).
Richard.
--
Joseph Landman, Ph.D
Founder and CEO
Scalable Informatics Inc.
email: land...@scalableinformatics.com
web : http://scalableinformatics.com
http://scalableinformatics.com/jackrabbit
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