[plug] RAID newbie

[Craig Ringer]

> Craig told me at the last meeting that software RAID was better in his 
> opinion. Is this just a matter of installing multiple HDDs and configuring 
> them to act as RAID drives? 

To clarify, I'd be more comfortable using software RAID than any kind of 
half-assed effort like the Promise and Highpoint controllers. They're 
really little more than software RAID themselves, just controlled by the 
driver. Cheap "hardware" RAID is not an attractive idea to me.

So I'd be inclined to investigate linux software RAID as well. That way, 
if you have to replace the mobo in an emergency or whatever, your RAID 
arrays will keep on working happily. If it's a PCI card, that really 
helps - especially if you can get hold of a spare one in case the first 
dies.

It's possible that the Promise and Highpoint RAID has improved since I 
last used it, but AFAIK it's still not real OS-transparent hardware 
RAID. I won't use them, but perhaps I'm being stupid about it.

Of course, my preference is for proper hardware RAID - but that ain't cheap.

I'm loving the combination of hardware RAID and LVM that I've got going 
now, that's for sure.

Craig Ringer