Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?
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I've been given a nice and shiny Dell Precision Tower 5810 as a new workstation at work. It's a really nice box. I was not involved in configuring the build, so it came with one SSD and one HDD. I'd like to add a second HDD and mirror the two. It looks like the onboard Intel RSTe SATA controller supports RAID.
This box will be running Fedora 25.
I've been using MD RAID on my current desktop to mirror two 3 TB HDDs and it's worked fine. This was my only choice since this box (Optiplex 3020) doesn't have any hardware RAID support.
Now that I have a "hardware" RAID option, which should I use? Should I create a RAID 1 volume via the Intel RSTe SATA controller or should I do a software RAID via MD?
Thoughts?
P.S. - I put "hardware" in quotes because I don't know how much the RAID functionality of the SATA controller is really in hardware.
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My money is on fake RAID you got there. So use md.
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@marcinozga said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
My money is on fake RAID you got there. So use md.
@marcinozga said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
My money is on fake RAID you got there. So use md.
Also because you already use MD.
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@marcinozga Yeah, after doing some research that is what it is. I stumbled across this and I'm thinking sticking with MD is the way to go.
https://superuser.com/questions/461506/intel-matrix-storage-manager-vs-linux-software-raid
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Intel RSTe is FakeRAID. There are realistically "no" hardware RAID options on desktop class machines on the market today. HP made one with hardware RAID in the mid-2000s and it was AMD only, it was a seriously rare device.
If you see Intel and RAID together, it's 90% chance of being FakeRAID, even when talking servers. On a desktop, it's guaranteed.
So software RAID is the only choice. So MD RAID is the way to go.
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@dafyre said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
@marcinozga said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
My money is on fake RAID you got there. So use md.
@marcinozga said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
My money is on fake RAID you got there. So use md.
Also because you already use MD.
You know what, I can even move the two disks to my new workstation and not have to transfer any data.
I think the answer may have been found...
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@anthonyh said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
@dafyre said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
@marcinozga said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
My money is on fake RAID you got there. So use md.
@marcinozga said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
My money is on fake RAID you got there. So use md.
Also because you already use MD.
You know what, I can even move the two disks to my new workstation and not have to transfer any data.
I think the answer may have been found...
Actually even better, I can break the RAID 1 on my current box and convert it to non-RAID, then move one of the disks to my new workstation and convert it back to RAID 1. If done right, I think I can do it all without any data loss too. I have a spare 3 TB disk...
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@anthonyh said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
@anthonyh said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
@dafyre said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
@marcinozga said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
My money is on fake RAID you got there. So use md.
@marcinozga said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
My money is on fake RAID you got there. So use md.
Also because you already use MD.
You know what, I can even move the two disks to my new workstation and not have to transfer any data.
I think the answer may have been found...
Actually even better, I can break the RAID 1 on my current box and convert it to non-RAID, then move one of the disks to my new workstation and convert it back to RAID 1. If done right, I think I can do it all without any data loss too.
I'd prefer to just move the two disks and not have to transfer any data... but that's just me.
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@dafyre said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
@anthonyh said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
@anthonyh said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
@dafyre said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
@marcinozga said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
My money is on fake RAID you got there. So use md.
@marcinozga said in Linux RAID Question - Software or "Hardware" ?:
My money is on fake RAID you got there. So use md.
Also because you already use MD.
You know what, I can even move the two disks to my new workstation and not have to transfer any data.
I think the answer may have been found...
Actually even better, I can break the RAID 1 on my current box and convert it to non-RAID, then move one of the disks to my new workstation and convert it back to RAID 1. If done right, I think I can do it all without any data loss too.
I'd prefer to just move the two disks and not have to transfer any data... but that's just me.
Yeah. I'll need to copy my home directory to the SSD in my current box before doing that though. That might be easier than breaking/re-creating the RAID. I'm not quite ready to "switch" yet. Hmm...
