gvinum with RAID capable SATA card

[Matthew Seaman]

Garrett Cooper wrote:
> Matthew Seaman wrote:
 
>> However, if you've got a hardware RAID card, then you'll almost
>> certainly be better off using it for doing RAID5 than doing it in
>> software with gvinum.  The RAID card will have hardware to do the
>> parity calculations needed for RAID5 and offloading that from the
>> CPU is a big win.
 
> Well, it may be in a sense, but I'm afraid of controller reliability and
> the whole proprietary nature of RAID cards.. I don't want a controller
> maker to be bought up by another group a few years from now and I won't
> be able to use my drives because they don't exist :(..

That's not a reason not to use hardware RAID.  That's a reason to have
comprehensive backups.  RAID is not an alternative to good backups --
it just means that with luck you will not need to restore from the
backup as frequently.

Besides most of the amalgamation in the RAID manufacturer market has
already happened: even if some of the remaining manufacturers did
merge, it would be commercial suicide for them to immediately drop
support for one of the former companies' model lines.  That's why eg.
the driver for LSI MegaRaid cards is amr(4) -- because LSI bought
American Megatrends several years ago.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       7 Priory Courtyard
                                                      Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Ramsgate
                                                      Kent, CT11 9PW

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 250 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20070218/9752b499/signature.pgp