nVidia FakeRAID
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It's common knowledge that nVidia has made a lot of FakeRAID systems over the years (software RAID masquerading as hardware for the purpose of fooling customers.) But has nVidia ever made any hardware RAID or are all nVidia RAID systems always FakeRAID? That's my real question. I've never heard of nVidia making hardware RAID controllers, but I want to be certain that the term "nVidia RAID" can be assumed to be synonymous with FakeRAID or do you have to look it up on a case by case basis?
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@scottalanmiller said:
It's common knowledge that nVidia has made a lot of FakeRAID systems over the years (software RAID masquerading as hardware for the purpose of fooling customers.) But has nVidia ever made any hardware RAID or are all nVidia RAID systems always FakeRAID? That's my real question. I've never heard of nVidia making hardware RAID controllers, but I want to be certain that the term "nVidia RAID" can be assumed to be synonymous with FakeRAID or do you have to look it up on a case by case basis?
I've never heard of nVidia RAID as a hardware option. Always software/bios related.
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What do these fake ones look like? I've always had an option just after BIOS to enter the controller
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@MattSpeller said:
What do these fake ones look like? I've always had an option just after BIOS to enter the controller
Simple answer is, they require drivers. If you set them up and install an OS without a driver and you can see the disks rather than the array, it is FakeRAID.
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@scottalanmiller Never seen that before, wow! That's super cheesy
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Is there specific hardware known to contain this garbage?
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller Never seen that before, wow! That's super cheesy
It is incredibly standard. Pretty much any nVidia, Intel or other motherboard controller is always FakeRAID. There are hardware motherboard RAID controllers, like those from AMD used by HP in some of their commercial machines, but they are few and far between. Maybe less than .1% or even .01% of the market. If there isn't a separate card you can safely assume it is going to wind up being FakeRAID and even with an external card easily half of all systems are FakeRAID.
Some, like HP and Dell software RAID, walk a fine line of acting like FakeRAID but announcing all over the place that they are Software RAID to avoid being actually Fake.
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Is the Linux MD style RAID also considered FakeRAID? Or is it anything that get setup after the operating system?
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@MattSpeller said:
Is there specific hardware known to contain this garbage?
The entire motherboard RAID market, for example.
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@coliver said:
Is the Linux MD style RAID also considered FakeRAID? Or is it anything that get setup after the operating system?
No, that is enterprise software RAID. FakeRAID requires that you pretend to be hardware RAID. It's "fake" because it is an attempt to dupe consumers. Linux MD RAID and ZFS RAID are at the very top of the best enterprise RAID systems.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
Is there specific hardware known to contain this garbage?
The entire motherboard RAID market, for example.
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Geez, not this shit again.
Chipset RAID is NOT fake. It does exactly what it says it does, mirrors or stripes datablocks between drives.
It's not hard to read up on these things.
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You blew my mind and I require further reading.
Do you have a link to any specific articles? Is this well known? How could I have been deceived for so long?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
Is the Linux MD style RAID also considered FakeRAID? Or is it anything that get setup after the operating system?
No, that is enterprise software RAID. FakeRAID requires that you pretend to be hardware RAID. It's "fake" because it is an attempt to dupe consumers. Linux MD RAID and ZFS RAID are at the very top of the best enterprise RAID systems.
Thanks for clarifying.
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@PSX_Defector said:
Geez, not this shit again.
Chipset RAID is NOT fake. It does exactly what it says it does, mirrors or stripes datablocks between drives.
It's not hard to read up on these things.
Chipset RAID is RAID. Fake RAID is not chipset RAID. It is software RAID pretending to be hardware RAID. Hence the term Fake. This is a standard industry term, it is not a grey area or in question.
There are rare chipsets that do hardware RAID, like AMD. But they are very rare. Does nVidia make any of those?
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@MattSpeller said:
You blew my mind and I require further reading.
Do you have a link to any specific articles? Is this well known? How could I have been deceived for so long?
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
Is there specific hardware known to contain this garbage?
The entire motherboard RAID market, for example.
nVidia isn't the only company to throw this on their boards. Just about any prosumer board has this style "RAID" on it. Although, if they owned up to it and said it was a software RAID would that make it better?
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@PSX_Defector said:
Chipset RAID is NOT fake. It does exactly what it says it does, mirrors or stripes datablocks between drives.
Do you have a specific chipset that you think does this? Maybe you see FakeRAID and are getting faked out by the system claiming that the chipset is doing something that it is not.
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@coliver said:
Although, if they owned up to it and said it was a software RAID would that make it better?
Yes, because it stops being fake. The whole thing of FakeRAID is not that the RAID is fake, it is that the product's purpose is to dupe consumers into believing that it is hardware RAID and doing things that it is not.
The Fake refers to faking people out as to the software versus hardware handling of the RAID. FakeRAID is still RAID. Otherwise it would simply not be RAID at all.
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That's what makes Dell and HP different. They sell cards that they label as RAID but they make it VERY clear that cards do nothing and that all of the RAID is 100% in software running on the CPU. This makes them crappy, silly and a waste of money but it does not make them con artists.
