[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk and software Raid

[Rémi Letot]

"Lyle Giese" <lyle at lcrcomputer.net> writes:

> I used software raids and want to get away from them.  I really really like
> Microlite's BackupEdge tape backup software.  BackupEdge does not work with a
> software raid, only a hardware raid.

I have worked with software raid for several years, and to date have
not had any problem with that. Of course the machine is more prone to
reboots in case of drive failure (the hardware is not designed to
recover from such events), but it usually just reboots, array in
degraded mode, data intact, and ready to assume it's duties.
  
> The second kicker was that the Promise (or any other) hardware IDE raids are
> considered software raid to the Kernel.  And are NOT supported with the new
> 2.6.x Kernels...

Promise and such are really low end raids adapters. For good ide
hardware raid, stick with 3ware. The price tag is much higer than
promise, but these are real professionnal raid adapters. They are seen
as scsi devices by linux, the driver is completely GPL, and has been
part of the official kernel tree for years. With these, it takes
really niche situations to ever need scsi raid again.
  
> My experience with IDE in raid arrays is less than stellar and will be
> trashing them as I rebuild servers.  I have had several instances where one
> drive fails and the entire array falls over as the kernel struggles to recover
> from the loss of a drive or the error messages.  I have seen this with Linux
> generated arrays and with the Promise IDE raid cards.  Besides the performance
> of the Promise parallel IDE raid sucks big time.

Promise are not real professionnal grade products, and software raid
can do nothing against hardware shortcomings. The only way to be
protected is with a real pro raid controler.

> With the excellent tape software above, I don't think I really need them
> anyway.  BackupEdge will generate a bootable CD-Rom that will install your
> last backup on bare metal after a major malfunction.

Backups are not subsitutes for raid, and vice versa.

<couic>

Back to *, I have only one * installation on software raid, so I can't
really make statistics, but it has no problem.

Bye,
-- 
Rémi