[Asterisk-Users] Hardware for Asterisk

[Steven Critchfield]

On Fri, 2004-01-16 at 16:55, Robert L Mathews wrote:
> At 1/16/04 7:25 AM, Andrew Kohlsmith <akohlsmith-asterisk at benshaw.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> >That's pure bullshit -- I use software RAID *specifically* because I value 
> >my data.  I don't want to buy two hardaware RAID controllers to have one 
> >sit on the shelf just in case the first dies... and if the second dies 
> >you're SOL because they've lasted long enough that they're no longer 
> >available.  Linux software RAID is available on any Linux system and if the 
> >system blows up I can put the drives in another system and *not* worry 
> >about it not being detected.
> 
> Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
> 
> We originally thought hardware RAID was the way to go, and we bought a 
> couple of fully loaded Dell PowerEdge 2550s with SCSI hardware RAID 5 
> arrays at about $4500 a pop. We also bought a PowerEdge 600SC for around 
> $900 with lots of disk space to use as a network backup machine (backing 
> up the 2550s) with Linux software RAID 5. I've also had a crappy old 
> desktop machine running Linux software RAID 1 for a couple of years.
> 
> It turns out that the software RAID is just as reliable (more so, in fact 
> -- we have had a number of lockups on the 2550s that appear to be due to 
> the hardware RAID subsystem locking up, and the software RAID machines 
> have never done that, even though the backup server does more disk I/O 
> than the others). The software RAID on the 600SC is faster than the 
> hardware RAID in bonnie tests.

I believe there is a recall option on those machines. So far no one has
identified what exactly is the problem there. I was reading the aac-raid
list for a while, some people point the finger at the firmware on the
disks, and some at the drivers. Either way, there are a few machines
that Dell acknoledges trouble with.