Stick with onboard SATA controller instead of dedicated one, alongwith seperate 3ware?

[markm75]

I'm brainstorming a new server.. i've decided to go with a 12 drive
case for this one.. which means the 8 port pci-e 3ware card now needs
to be a 12 port..

But.. this motherboard
http://www.atacom.com/program/print...RCH_ALL&Item_code=MBXE_SUPE_X7_04&USER_ID=www
already has 6 sata and raid5 and raid10 ability...

Would it be a bad idea to use the onboard one for the extra 4 drives?

This server will house 3 sql instances, file serving, antivirus
central server, but the user base is 40 and 2 of those sql instances
are low hit rates.

Would i see that much more performance for the extra $250 it would
cost to put them all on the same card.. or in fact.. might it be
better just to split them up in fact.

Thanks for any input here.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I'm brainstorming a new server.. i've decided to go with a 12 drive
case for this one.. which means the 8 port pci-e 3ware card now needs
to be a 12 port..

But.. this motherboard
http://www.atacom.com/program/print...RCH_ALL&Item_code=MBXE_SUPE_X7_04&USER_ID=www
already has 6 sata and raid5 and raid10 ability...

Would it be a bad idea to use the onboard one for the extra 4 drives?

This server will house 3 sql instances, file serving, antivirus
central server, but the user base is 40 and 2 of those sql instances
are low hit rates.

Would i see that much more performance for the extra $250 it would
cost to put them all on the same card.. or in fact.. might it be
better just to split them up in fact.

Depends on your access patterns. On-board ''RAID'' is typically
fakeRAID. It is not faster than software-RAID, but less flexible
and if the board dies you may have a recovery problem.

If you are satisfied with the 3ware controller's performance but
need 12 RAIDed disks, I would advise you to get a 12 port
controller. Otherwise put a true software RAID on the remaining
4 disks.

Arno

 

[lars]

I'm brainstorming a new server.. i've decided to go with a 12 drive
case for this one.. which means the 8 port pci-e 3ware card now needs
to be a 12 port..

But.. this motherboard
http://www.atacom.com/program/print...RCH_ALL&Item_code=MBXE_SUPE_X7_04&USER_ID=www
already has 6 sata and raid5 and raid10 ability...

Would it be a bad idea to use the onboard one for the extra 4 drives?

This server will house 3 sql instances, file serving, antivirus
central server, but the user base is 40 and 2 of those sql instances
are low hit rates.

Would i see that much more performance for the extra $250 it would
cost to put them all on the same card.. or in fact.. might it be
better just to split them up in fact.

Thanks for any input here.

"This is for random operations with small block sizes. At large block sizes,
the Mtron
drive is 10-40% faster than a 15K SSD, mostly depending on what part of the
HDD
you are accessing."

Think you aught to currect this part... "15K SSD" ??

I think great stuff otherwise. SSD's have to go into RAID systems, think so
to, nice to see someone agreeing on this.

Any thoughts about RAID 6, is it needed on SSD's, large HDD 144GB+ yes but
large SSD - think rebuild time aught to be lower with SSD ??

 

[Arno Wagner]

markm75 wrote:

"This is for random operations with small block sizes. At large block sizes,
the Mtron
drive is 10-40% faster than a 15K SSD, mostly depending on what part of the
HDD
you are accessing."

Think you aught to currect this part... "15K SSD" ??

I think great stuff otherwise. SSD's have to go into RAID systems, think so
to, nice to see someone agreeing on this.

Any thoughts about RAID 6, is it needed on SSD's, large HDD 144GB+ yes but
large SSD - think rebuild time aught to be lower with SSD ??

SSDs are close to computer memory. Adding an external RAID layer to
them sounds like a very wrong thing to do to me. Any redundancy
should be done in teh SSD itself.

Arno

 

[lars]

SSDs are close to computer memory. Adding an external RAID layer to
them sounds like a very wrong thing to do to me. Any redundancy
should be done in teh SSD itself.

Arno

You know that in high end IBM and other servers RAID 1 for the memory is
availably.

And come to think of it there is still the problem of FRU if doing the
redundancy in the SSD itself. So for real life in a sever, no sir RAID
still has its advances - otherwise 24x7 can't be done.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Arno Wagner wrote:

You know that in high end IBM and other servers RAID 1 for the memory is
availably.

RAID for memory? Are you sure you are not talking about ECC,
which is far better for memory? I do not expect this type of really,
really bad engineering out of IBM, unless the customer demands
it (due to incompetence). Care to list a reference?

And come to think of it there is still the problem of FRU if doing the
redundancy in the SSD itself. So for real life in a sever, no sir RAID
still has its advances - otherwise 24x7 can't be done.

RAID is fine. But RAID for SSDs is just a sign that the technology
is not being understood. The problem here is that while HDDs
a) typically fail as a unit and b) typically notice when they are
failing, RAID makes a lot of sense with HDDs. SSDs are more likely
to fail in memory locations. A quality SSD can compensate with ECC.
If it cannot, then its controller chip is shot )or something very, very
unlikely happened) and it may give arbitrary wrong data to the
user. RAID does not help at all in this case. Of course this is
simplified.

Arno

 

[lars]

RAID for memory? Are you sure you are not talking about ECC,
which is far better for memory? I do not expect this type of really,
really bad engineering out of IBM, unless the customer demands
it (due to incompetence). Care to list a reference?

YES sure!

Go to www.ibm.com do a search for "memory mirrored" you will among other
things find xSeries models and tech papers on this.

http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/journal/rd/452/tremaine.html
and many many other.

RAID is fine. But RAID for SSDs is just a sign that the technology
is not being understood. The problem here is that while HDDs
a) typically fail as a unit and b) typically notice when they are
failing, RAID makes a lot of sense with HDDs. SSDs are more likely
to fail in memory locations. A quality SSD can compensate with ECC.
If it cannot, then its controller chip is shot )or something very, very
unlikely happened) and it may give arbitrary wrong data to the
user. RAID does not help at all in this case. Of course this is
simplified.

Arno

Still won't do in real life, SSD simply can't be sold as a "never failing
single device". There is no market in highend IT for such a thing!
A solution with the possibility of handling the SSD as a FRU is what it
takes - without question.

Not that I like refering to specific products, but this company I think is
close me my own thinking and the use of SSD's.
http://www.bitmicro.com/solutions_apps_comp_raidsys.php

Now...
Please take a good cup of coffee, and sit down for a while.

Having great new technology coming to market, is well... great
But if 24x7 handling can't be given, then the new technology will have no
place in high end solutions. Solution keeps running while having failed
part replaced is what defines highend storage today - I think.

SSD will be banned to live its hole life in laptops etc.
And "never failing single device" well not good enough for highend storage
solutions..

So even if you are right SSD "technology is not being understood", you have
to understand the storage market better I think.
So to put it as clear as I can, even if you beeing right today about SSD it
will take years (decades) before you could sell such stuff to highend
without extra security.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Arno Wagner wrote in news:[email protected]

RAID for memory?

Hard of hearing now too, babblehead?

Are you sure you are not talking about ECC,
which is far better for memory? I do not expect this type of really,
really bad engineering out of IBM, unless the customer demands
it (due to incompetence). Care to list a reference?


RAID is fine. But RAID for SSDs is just a sign that the technology
is not being understood. The problem here is that while HDDs
a) typically fail as a unit and b) typically notice when they are
failing, RAID makes a lot of sense with HDDs. SSDs are more likely
to fail in memory locations. A quality SSD can compensate with ECC.
If it cannot, then its controller chip is shot )or something very, very
unlikely happened) and it may give arbitrary wrong data to the
user. RAID does not help at all in this case.

Of course this is simplified.

Like you yourself are 'simple', babblehead.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Arno Wagner wrote:

YES sure!

Go to www.ibm.com do a search for "memory mirrored" you will among other
things find xSeries models and tech papers on this.

http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/journal/rd/452/tremaine.html
and many many other.

Ok, that is for very high availability stuff only. And it is
not RAID in thst strict sense. It is mirrored memory that can
continue to operate through ECC failure. Unless the controller
and bus system is orders of magnitude more reliable than the
memory used, this makes no sense at al technologicaly.

Still won't do in real life, SSD simply can't be sold as a "never failing
single device". There is no market in highend IT for such a thing!
A solution with the possibility of handling the SSD as a FRU is what it
takes - without question.

I never vclaimed that. But I expect a SSD is as reliable as the
disk controller in the first place and reduyndancy by multiple
SSDs makes no sense.

Not that I like refering to specific products, but this company I think is
close me my own thinking and the use of SSD's.
http://www.bitmicro.com/solutions_apps_comp_raidsys.php

Now...
Please take a good cup of coffee, and sit down for a while.

Having great new technology coming to market, is well... great
But if 24x7 handling can't be given, then the new technology will have no
place in high end solutions. Solution keeps running while having failed
part replaced is what defines highend storage today - I think.

See above.

SSD will be banned to live its hole life in laptops etc.
And "never failing single device" well not good enough for highend storage
solutions..

So even if you are right SSD "technology is not being understood", you have
to understand the storage market better I think.

Not at all. I am not in the business of ripping customers off. I am a
customer that is an expert at the same time. As with the memory,
redundancy by having multiple SSDs only makes sense if the RAID
controller used is orders of magnitude more reliable than the SSD. I
doubt that is the case for typical SSDs and controllers. For HDDs it
is routinely the case.

So to put it as clear as I can, even if you beeing right today about
SSD it will take years (decades) before you could sell such stuff to
highend without extra security.

a) It is "safety" or "redundancy", not "security".
b) People buy all kinds of stupid stuff, because they do not understand
science and/or engineering.
c) A pair of high-reliability SSDs,
together with a high reliability RAID-1 controller is actually
less reliable than using one of the SSDs directly, if we assume
that a simple non-RAID controller is a lot more reliable. Do the
math. The assumption has merit, because the RAID-1 controller is
much more complex than a simple controller.

Arno

 

[lars]

Ok, that is for very high availability stuff only. And it is
not RAID in thst strict sense. It is mirrored memory that can
continue to operate through ECC failure. Unless the controller
and bus system is orders of magnitude more reliable than the
memory used, this makes no sense at al technologicaly.

Mirrored is RAID 1!

I know clustered OS has come around to stay. But still being able to run
until next service opportunity to replace memory, great stuff if you really
need it.

I never vclaimed that. But I expect a SSD is as reliable as the
disk controller in the first place and reduyndancy by multiple
SSDs makes no sense.

No No disk controller. Highend. Eg. HDS 99xx systems - Doing 7D+1P uses 8
disk controllers, so also the disk controller can be replaced as FRU with
running disk system. In each array each disk only uses a given disk
controller for one disk in the array. Each disk controller then beeing used
for many disk arrays.
Think IBM highend disk systems, 8300 (and lower), as well.

And yes disk controllers they do fail.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Arno Wagner wrote:

Mirrored is RAID 1!

No. You can mirror without Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.
Memory redundancy is not RAID at all, except for two instances
of the memory being there.

I know clustered OS has come around to stay. But still being able to run
until next service opportunity to replace memory, great stuff if you really
need it.

Unless it is just expensive and does not improve overall
reliability. You know the more eleaborate memory controller has
a higher chance to fail. And you cannot replace that in a running system,
now can you?

Arno Wagner wrote:

No No disk controller. Highend. Eg. HDS 99xx systems - Doing 7D+1P uses 8
disk controllers, so also the disk controller can be replaced as FRU with
running disk system. In each array each disk only uses a given disk
controller for one disk in the array. Each disk controller then beeing used
for many disk arrays.
Think IBM highend disk systems, 8300 (and lower), as well.

And yes disk controllers they do fail.

And the redundancy is done on what level here? Software-Raid?

Arno

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Arno Wagner wrote in news:[email protected]

No. You can mirror without Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.
Memory redundancy is not RAID at all, except for two instances
of the memory being there.

The very same can be said of RAID1.
Yet that is what they call it even though it's not much of an "array".

Unless it is just expensive and does not improve overall reliability.
You know the more eleaborate memory controller has a higher chance
to fail.

And you cannot replace that in a running system, now can you?

Who said anything about there being one controller.

And the redundancy is done on what level here? Software-Raid?

How about the OS, babblehead moron.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Arno Wagner wrote in news:[email protected]

Ok, that is for very high availability stuff only.

Yeah, nothing to do with RAID obviously.

And it is not RAID in thst strict sense.

Of course not. Everyone and his dog knows that.

It is mirrored memory that can continue to operate through ECC failure.

Yeah, obviously a whole other ball game.

Unless the controller and bus system is orders of magnitude more re-
liable than the memory used, this makes no sense at al technologicaly.

Yeah, who cares about the rest.

I never vclaimed that. But I expect a SSD is as reliable as the disk
controller in the first place and reduyndancy by multiple SSDs makes
no sense.

Who sayd they must be on the same controller, babblehead.

Coffee is all there is in the babbleheads veins.
That's what allows it to bullshit at all hours of the day and night.

See above.

Not at all.
Idjut.

I am not in the business of ripping customers off. I am a
customer that is an expert at the same time. As with the memory,
redundancy by having multiple SSDs only makes sense if the RAID
controller used is orders of magnitude more reliable than the SSD.

It doesn't need to be a RAID controller, you babblehead moron.

I doubt that is the case for typical SSDs and controllers.
For HDDs it is routinely the case.


a) It is "safety" or "redundancy", not "security".

Pity security is just another word for safety.

b) People buy all kinds of stupid stuff, because they do not understand
science and/or engineering.
c) A pair of high-reliability SSDs,
together with a high reliability RAID-1 controller is actually
less reliable than using one of the SSDs directly, if we assume
that a simple non-RAID controller is a lot more reliable.

Do the math.
Bwahaha.

The assumption has merit, because the RAID-1 controller is
much more complex than a simple controller.

Utterly clueless, as always.