Re: [PLUG] Real (driverless) hardware RAID controller for PC?

[JP Vossen <jp@jpsdomain.org>]

On 10/23/2014 12:09 PM, Greg Helledy wrote:
> This is very helpful.  I have two more questions:
> 
> 1. There are many motherboards that advertise themselves as offering
> onboard RAID.  My understanding is that these are essentially a built-in
> "fake raid" controller, in that they still offload work to the OS and
> therefore require a driver.  Is that correct?

Probably.  Doesn't matter as long as you can turn that fake RAID off and
just use it as a bunch of SATA ports.  As everyone else said, avoid
hardware RAID and use software, *especially* for RAID1.

My worst data problems have all been caused by low-end hardware RAID,
and never once has it helped me.  (High-end real RAID controllers are
different and have mostly worked for me at $WORK.)


> 2. Looking at the linux RAID wiki on kernel.org, it seems that no
> special hardware is required to set up and use RAID with mdadm--a couple
> of hard drives plugged into the onboard SATA controllers of any ol'
> motherboard would be fine.  Is that also correct?

Every Linux machine I have that will physically fit 2 drives has 2 in a
Linux software RAID1.  Lots of great things about that, I have posted a
number of items to the list on this, as have others.  Especially
http://lists.netisland.net/archives/plug/plug-2013-04/msg00065.html and
related.  Go to http://lists.netisland.net/archives/plug/, then search
for "RAID1" and you'll find a bunch of useful stuff.

Good luck,
JP
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