Re: shadowing (like IB/Firebird)

On 4/27/04 11:48 PM, "David Garamond" <lists(at)zara(dot)6(dot)isreserved(dot)com> wrote:

> Does this mean software RAID is actually safer than hardware RAID?
> (Since the OS and processor is usually more reliable than a disc
> controller).

I'm not sure I would jump to that conclusion. If a controller went bad and
trashed a disk below a software RAID, who knows how the RAID software would
handle it? The only point I was making is that RAID usually, but not
always, protects against hardware failures. There are a number of things it
doesn't protect against. I'd guess in the last 15 years or so I've seen a
RAID not prevent data loss on a hardware failure an average of every 2-3
years +/-. The most recent was a couple of weeks ago when 2 disks failed
(the conjecture is that one died and took out the other, but no one knows
for sure). Then there's all the software failures - program errors,
corrupted file systems (we had that about a month ago on a ReiserFS), etc.

Wes