RAID - hardware vs. ZFS

[Graham Allan]

I have implemented ZFS on HPE SmartArray controllers, but not really out 
of choice - it was the hardware available. I'd prefer just to use a JBOD 
controller. You lose all the benefits of ZFS knowledge of hardware and 
drive state, but of course there are useful benefits to ZFS outside of 
that (volume management, snapshots etc) so it's not a total loss.

When I did create a ZFS pool on the hardware RAID, I just used a single 
large hardware RAID volume (I didn't try to expose the individual drives 
either as single-drive RAID-0 volumes, or drive pass-through). I found 
the drive pass-through on Gen9 SmartArray controllers to be very flaky, 
though the Gen10 ones look like they might be better.

On 5/12/2020 10:46 AM, D'Arcy Cain wrote:
> I have to purchase new servers soon.  I am planning on getting Proliant
> DL360 servers.  These come with hardware RAID.  I was wondering what
> opinions people had about hardware RAID vs. using ZFS for RAID.  Is one
> safer than the other?  What about performance?  What about hot swapping?
> 
> All opinions welcome.
>