[SO]HO Software RAID5 server: which implementation should I choice?

[Louis Kowolowski]

Arnaud Houdelette wrote:
> Lev Serebryakov a écrit :
>> Hello, freebsd-stable.
>>
>>   Does somebody use some software RAID5 on FreeBSD in real production
>>   system?
>>
>>   I want to build storage server for my home: RAW photos, multi-layer
>> PhotoShop files and FLAC-encoded music consume a lot of space, and
>> they should be availible both from desktop & notebook.
>>
>>   Also, all photo-content is unique, so I need some insuranse from
>> single HDD crash. I understand, that I will not safe from fire, PSU
>> failure and thing slike this.
>>
>>   I selected hardware platform: Intel Q35-based MoBo with 6xSATA-II ports
>> (all of them is chipset-based, so no SiliconImage/JMicron/Whatever
>> crappy controllers), some low-end Core2Duo, 2Gb of memory.
>>   Storage will be 5x500Gb WD HDDs for RAID + one small HDD for boot,
>> system,
>> swap, etc. I want to have 2Tb (ok, not real Tb, I know) of "protected"
>> storage.
>>   I want to have maximum speed via 1Gb network, because graphic files
>> are big and should open fast. Not as fast as local ones, I understand
>> that, but speeds about 12-15Mb/s is not enough for sure :)
>>
>>   Only problem I see: which software RAID5 solution should I prefer?
>> FreeBSD-based, of course!
>>
>>   I see these variants:
>>
>>  (1) FreeBSD 6(7?) + graid3. Slow, one disk for checksums is bottleneck,
>>      as far as I understand.
>>
>>  (2) FreeBSD 6(7?) + gvinum/radi5. Is it stable enough?! Is it complete?
>>      when I try it about 6 months ago in VMWare installation with 5
>>      virtual disks, I got panics and strange behaviour after "crashing"
>>      one of virtual disks.
>>
>>  (3) FreeBSD 6(7?) + graid5. Again, is it stable enough? There are
>>      THREE versions of it. Which one should I prefer? There was long
>>      thread about it some times ago without any clear conclusion. Does
>>      something changed?
>>
>>  (4) FreeBSD 7 + ZFS "zraid". And again: stability. Too many messages
>>      about locks, crashes, etc. Code is experemental. Is it only for
>>      32 bit systems?
>>
>>  (5) Do I miss something?
>>
>>  (6) Solaris + ZFS? I don't want it, I know a little about Solaris
>>      administaration, and I already have FreeBSD servers and routers.
>>
>>   I know, that 3ware or Areca controllers are very good. I know, that
>>   "gmirror" is very stable. But these variants are too expensive for
>>   home server :(
>>
>>   Does somebody use some software RAID5 on FreeBSD in real production?
>>   Any advices?
>>   
> 
I've been using FreeNAS (http://www.freenas.org) for personal use as
well as a couple of places at work.  It lives on a USB key and uses the
disks for storage.  It uses Samba, AFP, NFS, and iSCSI.  I haven't
really loaded it down, but I've been seeing close to 100Mbit (on gig-e)
(this is NFS shares for VMWare ESX)
-- 

Louis Kowolowski                                louisk at cryptomonkeys.com
Cryptomonkeys:                      http://www.cryptomonkeys.com/~louisk

Everyone is a genius.  It's just that some people are too stupid to
realize it.

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