[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk and software Raid

[Michael Welter]

Ed Devine wrote:

> 
> I've got a Dual Xeon system Digium Quad T1 and an Idle T1 circuit that I 
> can experiment with. I've been wanting to use Redhat with software Raid 
> 1 on an Asterisk server.
>  
> Has anyone had any experience with software raid and Asterisk? Also, if 
> the software raid doesn't play, any recommendations for a hardware based 
> IDE Raid controller and suggestions on best practices for setting up the 
> disk partitions (2 X 40 GB. Maxtors) for a mirrored environment would be 
> appreciated.
>  
> Thanks all

I've had no luck with software RAID in Linux.  Using RAID1, recovering a 
drive seems to peg the processor, and the recovery lasts for over 16 
hours for 160GB disks.  I can't even imagine what it is doing during 
that period.  I played with the /proc values, but I wasn't able to 
reduce the CPU utilization.

Needless to say, with 90-100% CPU utilization, voice quality goes down 
the toilet--the system was totally unusable until the recovery was 
complete.

I've gone to the 3Ware 7006-2 ($100).  This card has two IDE ports 
(other cards have four, eight, and 12). To the system it appears as a 
SCSI controller with one drive.  Drive recovery is handled on the card.

I have an eight port card with 200MB drives on my database machine 
(RAID5), and it works quite well.  1.4TB of disk.  I've lost a drive and 
the machine continues to operate.

I'm sorry to hear about the Promise chip because that is what is on the 
newer Tyan mother boards.  For a 1U or 2U cabinet, I don't have the 
luxury of a bunch of PCI slots (the two slots are occupied by T405P 
cards), and I need to use the on-board raid.  Does anyone else have any 
experience with this.

Cheers,

-- 
Michael Welter
Introspect Telephony Corp.
Denver, Colorado
+1 303 674 2575
mike at introspect.com
www.introspect.com