[nylug-talk] How to set up Raid 1 on Ubuntu, Or Linux in gerneral

[Chris Knadle]

On Friday 01 June 2007, Henning Follmann wrote:
<snip>
> And that's why you should either buy a decent controller (that is
> scsi) or stick with software raid.
> I know the scsi option defeats the "i" in raid but in the long run it
> pays off to spend more on some hardware.

   I like SCSI hardware, but it is much more costly, and SCSI drives tend to 
be smaller in storage size.  36 GB to 74 GB SCSI disks are relatively 
affordable at under $200, but from there it gets expensive fast.  For storage 
servers where what is being sought are larger drives, that cost becomes 
prohibitive:
   300 GB SATA disk:  $80
   300 GB SCSI disk: $600

   Not quite an order of magnitude in price difference, but pretty close -- 
and that's without considering the SCSI controller or terminators.

   For $600 I could buy a /pair/ of 750 GB SATA drives and mirror them.
So as much as I like SCSI hardware, I know what I'd buy if I was setting up a 
new file server.  :-/

> As a side effect you also get the longer MTBF of SCSI hard disks.

   Unfortunately the data that I've seen shows that the listed MTBF ratings 
are optimistic [not that that's any surprise], and that SCSI disks may not be 
much more reliable than SATA disks.

      http://www.usenix.org/events/fast07/tech/schroeder.html


   -- Chris

-- 

Chris Knadle
Chris.Knadle at coredump.us