[RndTbl] Hard drives

[Kevin McGregor]

My server uses ECC RAM and is plugged into a UPS, so I've taken reasonable
precautions.


On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 11:42 AM, Adam Thompson <athompso at athompso.net>wrote:

> > this differently).  I've only tipped the ice berg of info here and
> > I'm sure Adam Thompson will fill in the bits I've missed. :)
>
> Err... no, I think you've covered it quite sufficiently!
>
> > I'd also recommend avoiding as much RAID as possible that's not
> > controller independent mirroring.
>
> The obvious exception being ZFS arrays, where hardware RAID controllers
> are pretty much useless and just get in the way.
> Unless you meant to stay away from hardware RAID controllers altogether
> and use software RAID?
> That pendulum swings back and forth regularly.
>
> RAID 6 warrants (in many cases) a dedicated processor... either by running
> a dedicated storage array with, e.g. ZFS or Linux MD in raid6 mode, or by
> using a hardware controller that does RAID 6 onboard.
> RAID 5 gives the best TB/$ but suffers a write performance penalty, and an
> everything penalty when in degraded mode.
> RAID 1 gives the worst TB/$ but the best performance all-round.
>
> Whatever you do, a BBWC (battery-backed-up write cache) will enable much
> better performance.  This is typically a hardware thing, but it can be
> simulated in software too if you have a UPS and you otherwise trust the
> solid state components of your motherboard, CPU, RAM, etc.
>
> So, if you use software RAID, make sure you have ECC RAM and a good UPS
> (that gets tested regularly).
> If you use hardware RAID, shoot for RAID 6 native support and a BBWC.
>
> [Yes, I know I'm getting off-topic from Kevin's original post.]
>
> -Adam
>
>
>
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