Hardware RAID devices supported in ASL kernel

TheEniGMa · Unread post by **TheEniGMa** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 6:39 am

Hello Scott (or anyone).

I'm looking for a hardware RAID card that will work out of the box with CentOS 5 and the ASL kernel (currently using 2.6.19-7). Does anyone have some suggestion to a not to expensive card that can hadle SATA RAID 0+1 ?

I don't want to mess with compiled drivers från src that will broke as soon as an update is made to the system/kernel... =)

Also, what is the differense between RAID-10 and RAID 0+1? I have been told 0+1 is much better then 10 but really don't see the difference between them?

Thanks.

npavlidis · Unread post by **npavlidis** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 6:51 am

I would suggest something using the megaraid module.. its 99.9% supported by the asl kernel (the rest 0.1% you get from scott)

by the way why would you go for a complex 0+1 setup when you got 4 drives? just go for a raid 5... simple.. redundant.. good performance..

breun · Unread post by **breun** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 10:05 am

I recommend using 3ware RAID controllers, great Linux support. You can get rpms for tw_cli (the 3ware CLI tool) and 3dm2 (the web GUI tool) from ATrpms or install them from the 3ware site. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID for the different RAID levels.

TheEniGMa · Unread post by **TheEniGMa** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 2:05 pm

Thanks.

I´ve been looking at 3ware and heard that they should work good with Linux, more or less just wanted to have that confirmed =) Most of the 3ware cards should be recognised directly at install without need for extra drivers, the drivers are included in kernel?

Also got what I needed at wikipedies "RAID-guide". I have been using (software) RAID-5 for a few servers but I´m now building a high-traffic machine and a RAID 0+1 should give some better performance.

Thanks for the answers, I got the info what I need =)

singeX · Unread post by **singeX** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:15 pm

I use a 3Ware 9650SE and 9550SX (both on RAID 5) and they both work really well with centos 5 and asl without having to install additional drivers. I also recommend the BBU module if you aren't already planning on it.

breun · Unread post by **breun** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:21 pm

Yes, the drivers are in the kernel. Beware though that there is performance issue with the current RHEL/CentOS 5.2 kernels (not the ASL kernel) and 3ware cards. This is in the known issues section of the release notes.