[olug] Server Motherboard Recomendations.

[Dan Linder]

>
> On Sunday 22 March 2009 20:53:42 Jay Bendon wrote:
> > I find this to be a very quality server motherboard, works well with my
> > raid card, but also has builtin software raid if you don't want a raid
> > card,


I've never used modern server-class motherboards, but my experience with the
integrated motherboard RAID is that they are at best equal to the in-kernel
software RAID option ("md").  My home workstation has three 300GB HDDs in a
RAID-5 config and it works really well.

Having said that, I would like to replace the setup with a single 750GB or
larger HDD.  Occasionally when I kick off a program to perform a lot of disk
IO, I see the RAID processes (md#_raid5) chew up a lot of CPU and X gets
sluggish.


On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 7:41 AM, Dave Thacker <dthacker9 at cox.net> wrote:
> > What's your preference on raid cards?


I have an old Compaq DL-380 with the Compaq RAID card that had been
bullet-proof for me.  I have four 18GB HDDs in RAID 5 and it's worked like a
champ for the past 3+ years. I've heard that the Adaptec server-oriented
line of cards are quite nice, but I don't have direct knowledge myself.

To the original poster, Jesse Regier:
Since your concern is long-term stability over raw performance, I'd push for
the software (md) RAID over an add-in card or the on-motherboard RAID
option.  If the entire motherboard gets fried, you should be able to pull
the HDDs out and mount them on another Linux system and recover your data.

Dan

-- 
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Who can watch the watchmen?) -- from the
Satires of Juvenal
"I do not fear computers, I fear the lack of them." -- Isaac Asimov (Author)
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