Re: Hardware vs Software RAID

On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 5:05 AM, Adrian Moisey
<adrian(at)careerjunction(dot)co(dot)za> wrote:
> Hi
>
> Has anyone done some benchmarks between hardware RAID vs Linux MD software
> RAID?
>
> I'm keen to know the result.

I've had good performance from sw RAID-10 in later kernels, especially
if it was handling a mostly read type load, like a reporting server.
The problem with hw RAID is that the actual performance delivered
doesn't always match up to the promise, due to issues like driver
bugs, mediocre implementations, etc. Years ago when the first
megaraid v2 drivers were coming out they were pretty buggy. Once a
stable driver was out they worked quite well.

I'm currently having a problem with a "well known very large
servermanufacturer who shall remain unnamed" and their semi-custom
RAID controller firmware not getting along with the driver for ubuntu.

The machine we're ordering to replace it will have a much beefier RAID
controller with a better driver / OS match and I expect better
behavior from that setup.