[ILUG] Booting a broken raid array

[Kenn Humborg]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ilug-bounces at linux.ie [mailto:ilug-bounces at linux.ie]On Behalf Of
> Pádraig Brady
> Sent: Friday, January 16, 2009 2:18 PM
> To: Kenn Humborg
> Cc: ilug at linux.ie
> Subject: Re: [ILUG] Booting a broken raid array
>
>
> Kenn Humborg wrote:
> > I'd say get a server with a real hardware RAID setup, like a Dell PERC.
>
> Hardware RAID is worse than software RAID IMHO,
> as it's often buggy and just adds extra dependencies.
> http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/008696.html

I haven't had any issue like that with the Dell controllers,
but my experience hasn't been that extensive.  I've never
used any other vendors' kits and I wouldn't trust anything
cobbled together from multiple vendors.

> Software RAID as well as being simpler, cheaper and
> easy to upgrade can also have functional advantages:
> http://blogs.sun.com/bonwick/entry/raid_z

Interesting!  How do Sun handle the boot-from-software-RAID
problem?  They probably have much smarter boot loaders.

> Some even suggest that any RAID is bad, so
> its use should be carefully considered:
> http://www.pugetsystems.com/articles?&id=29

He didn't say "any RAID is bad".  He said RAID (any
flavour) is probably not what you want for home/desktop/
workstation machines.  Doing it right is too expensive
and doesn't cover most of the things that go wrong for
these users.

Later,
Kenn