I have written another article with comparison and difference between various raid types using figures including. Ive actually had up to 3 hd movies streaming off the array simultaneously with no issues and not even putting a dent in what the setup can do. Note, these are my terms because i cant remember the proper ones. That said, linux software raid is more robust and better supported and thus, recommended over fakeraid if you do not need to dual boot with windows. My desktop has 4 disks configured in a fakeraid raid 10 setup. For that i need to know how to configure the raid 10 software. They have onboard bbu raid controllers with iirc 2gb cache and 24 x 15k disks. Bonus point here is using standard and proven linux tools md driver and mdadm utility and being hardwareindependent. Nov 19, 2014 only thing i had to do with the ssd is tell the host to id the raid 0 drive for the ssd which is a simple thing to do in an esxi host and reboot after that i installed the lsi providers vib so i can remote into the hosts and control the raid without rebooting the host all the time. This wiki describes how to get linux to see the raid as one disk and boot from it in the same way that windows will install on this type of device. Back when all of our server storage was on scsi disks, i used to be pretty particular about using good. Comparing hardware raid vs software raid setups deals with how the storage drives in a raid array connect to the motherboard in a server or pc, and the management of those drives.
Not all fake raids are labelled with one of those, but itll catch probably 90% of them. And then linux md raid software is often faster and much more flexible and versatile than hw raid. Does fake raid offer any advantage over software raid. The only difference between linux software raid and highpoints raid is that its a different piece of software. Updating a parity chunk requires either the original chunk, the new chunk, and the old parity block. Fakeraid is a common and terrible way to sell what sounds great, but really has no viable use case in production. Fyi there is a difference of risk involved in raid 10 vs raid 01. Aug 28, 2017 hardware raid and software raid are both important storage tools that we use with our systems. We cover how to start, stop, or remove raid arrays, how to find information about both the raid device and the underlying storage components, and how to adjust the. Windows software raid vs hardware raid ars technica. I have good writeups using ubuntu so i will be using the latest version of ubuntu server to accomplish this. We just need to remember that the smallest of the hdds or partitions dictates the arrays capacity.
When a chunk is written on a raid 5 array, the corresponding parity chunk must be updated as well. Or you may have a host bus adapter fakeraid in which case you need dmraid instead of mdraid. Windows software raid vs hardware raid 10 posts arlesterc. Intel does not like dmraid which is a fake raid utility. There are more ways to install linux on a fakeraid array, for example using the alternative cd, but i strongly prefer this method. Creating a software raid array in operating system software is the easiest way to go.
In a hardware raid setup, the drives connect to a raid controller card inserted in a fast pciexpress pcie slot in a motherboard. It can either be performed in the host servers cpu software raid, or in an external cpu hardware raid. Software raid is implemented by the os, and the os handles the logic for the array. I am trying to decide if i should get the serveraid controller or go get a 3ware controller. For one thing, the onboard sata connections go directly to the southbridge, with a speed of about 20 gbits. Kindly guide me in how to configure raid 10 on linux, any articles, or. It is used to improve disk io performance and reliability of your server or workstation. How to dual boot windows and linux on a fake raid array. This is why fakeraid doesnt work correctly with some linux distributions, the kernel will see through the fakery and will still show.
Regular raid 1, as provided by linux software raid, does not stripe reads, but can perform reads in parallel. This is hardware raid and, honestly, im guessing it is slower than software raid if really tested, it lack the horsepower to anything much. Raid capabilities provided by the filesystem like in btrfs and zfs. Mar 26, 2015 creating a software raid array in operating system software is the easiest way to go. Apr 28, 2017 how to create a software raid 5 on linux. We have a lenovo p71 with a regular hard drive and 2 m. You can mix and match raid levels using raid 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, 10 and linear linear not. This raid level essentially combines the features of raid 1 and raid 0, making sure data is mirrored and therefore safe mirroring while also making sure that the io performance of a system is improved thanks to the data being spread across multiple drives and disks striping.
Presenting the storage as a single hardware raid 10 netted about 400600mbs sequential io. How i learned to stop worrying and love software raid. However, discerning between fakeraid and true hardware raid can be more difficult. Your best bet is to buy a decent addon raid card, or just use software raid. Though, thats only relevant if the two oses have mutually incompatible implementations of software raid or dont have one at all, booting 2 different distros of linux is trivially easy when. Fakeraidhowto community help wiki ubuntu documentation. Administrators have great flexibility in coordinating their individual storage devices and creating logical storage devices that have greater performance or redundancy characteristics. Am i better off using the bios raid functionality of the card or just having it as a sata controller and using linux software raid to mirror the drives. Typically this can be used to improve performance and allow for improved throughput compared to using just a single disk. Oct 26, 2017 that said, linux software raid is more robust and better supported and thus, recommended over fakeraid if you do not need to dual boot with windows. Two caveats here are that most fake raid solutions, are limited to at most raid 0, raid 1, raid 10, raid 5, and raid 50.
Software raid is one of the greatest feature in linux to protect the data from disk failure. We can use full disks, or we can use same sized partitions on different sized drives. Software raid, the previously preferred way to raid on linux. Not to mention, using the linux software raid, throughput is actually faster, since there is no real coprocessor on the high point. So i was disappointed that ubuntu didnt have it as a option for my new file server. The recommended software raid implementation in linux is the open source md raid package. Windows 8 comes with everything you need to use software raid, while the linux package mdadm is listed. In our earlier articles, weve seen how to setup a raid 0 and raid 1 with minimum 2 number of disks. This process involves a compiling a kernel b compiling a kernel driver c adding that driver to the kernel d creating a new liveusb. Not all operating systems support this feature, and it can introduce unique and unrecoverable errors. Depending on the failed disk it can tolerate from a minimum of n 2 1 disks failure in the case that all failed disk have the same data to a maximum of n 2 disks. Cloning fakeraid is possible with the all in one system. If you need to start over or remove the raid array. Raid 10 or raid 5 boot with raid 1 looked everywhere.
Software raid and fake raid are two different things. To use raid 10, there are two methods were going to show here. In a hardware raid setup, the drives connect to a special raid controller inserted in a fast pciexpress pcie slot in a motherboard. A raid can be deployed using both software and hardware. Modify your swap space by configuring swap over lvm. How to set up raid 10 in windows 8 and linux pc gamer.
In testing both software and hardware raid performance i employed six 750gb samsung sata drives in three raid configurations 5, 6, and 10. This site is the linux raid kernel list communitymanaged reference for linux software raid as implemented in recent version 4 kernels and earlier. As stated, manufacturers often incorrectly distinguish these two types of raid and false advertising is always possible. Page 2 of 2 raid and software raid are both important storage tools that we use with our systems. This software raid solution has been used primarily on mobile, desktop, and workstation platforms and, to a limited extent, on server platforms. For example the linux md raid10far layout gives you almost raid0 reading speed. Aug 16, 2016 how to manage raid arrays with mdadm on ubuntu 16. Generally speaking there is no significant performance difference at all between software raid and fake raid, as fake raid is moreorless software raid.
For software raid i used the linux kernel software raid functionality of a system running 64bit fedora 9. By definition, fake raid has no inherent benefits over honest software raid, they share all hardware and the os people have better watch over the implementations. I am also most proficient with linux software raid using mdadm. Hardware fakeraid vs linux software raid anandtech forums. I will be implementing with software raid 5 in linux. But the real question is whether you should use a hardware raid solution or a software raid. Raid 10 or raid 5 boot with raid 1 looked everywhere this is what i want to do, have an email server and nas, so data protection is an ultimate must. Numerous operating systems support raid configuration, including those from apple, microsoft, various linux flavors as well as openbsd. We have lvm also in linux to configure mirrored volumes but software raid recovery is much easier in disk failures compare to linux lvm. Now my question is do i need to setup the raid in the rste bios utility, or put the disks in ahci and then setup the raid in linux. That driver takes care of configuration as well as operation of the raid. Aug 09, 2018 trying to find the best raid option with what i got, so i decided to test the speed difference between onboard raid and software raid in windows. Here we will use both raid 0 and raid 1 to perform a raid 10 setup with minimum of 4 drives. There are two parts to the software raid fakeraid equation.
Intel has enhanced md raid to support rst metadata and orom and it is validated and supported by intel for server. Fakeraid is often denoted by motherboard manufacturers. Software vs hardware raid nixcraft linux tips, hacks. Learn about what fakeraid is and why you should avoid it. Since software raid is implemented by the user, the type of raid is easily known to the user. There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024, and could in certain setups cause problems with. Raid 10 layouts raid10 requires a minimum of 4 disks in theory, on linux mdadm can create a custom raid 10 array using two disks only, but this setup is generally avoided. The one upside of fake raid is that it does allow you to boot multiple oses from the same array of drives, provided that both oses support the fake raid. The ubuntu live cd installer doesnt support software raid, and the server and alternate cds only allow you to do raid levels 0, 1, and 5. It is commonly referred to as raid10, however, linux md raid10 is slightly. I have a zfs raid 10 software raid as my primary storage setup and the read speeds i get are more than enough to saturate my gigabit ethernet. I have written another article with comparison and difference between various raid types using figures including pros and cons of individual raid types so that you can make an informed decision.
Software raid is implemented at the operating system level, commonly in the form of a modified driver. Whilst the new code handling the raid io still runs in the kernel, devicemapper is generally. This article explains how to createmanage a software raid array using mdadm. Onboard raid vs windows 10 raid speed test experiment youtube. I will explain this in more detail in the upcoming chapters. What is the difference between hardware, software, and. Difference between software raid and hardware raid in high level is presented in this video session. I have an adaptec 1220sa 2 port sata raid controller and 2 seagate drives which im going to use in my home server in raid 1. Intel suggests mdraid which is software raid utility. A redundant array of inexpensive disks raid allows high levels of storage reliability. In linux, you can create raid devices using any regular block device including. Trying to find the best raid option with what i got, so i decided to test the speed difference between onboard raid and software raid in windows. Software raid vs fake raid on intel rste server fault.
I know the shortcomings of fakeraid vs true hardware raid. You are likely to have trouble booting off raid10, either implemented as a traditional nested array two raid1s in a raid0 or using linuxs recent allinone raid10 driver as both lilo and grub expect to have all the information needed to boot on one drive which it may not be with raid0 or 10 or software raid5 for that matter it works in hardware as the boot loader only sees one drive and the controller deals with where the data it actually spread amongst the drives. I use half of the volume for my windows steam library and the other half for my linux steam library. Raid 10 is a combine of raid 0 and raid 1 to form a raid 10. Lets start the hardware vs software raid battle with the hardware side. Discussion in howtorelated questions started by crushton, dec, 2005. How to create a software raid 5 in linux mint ubuntu. I ran the benchmarks using various chunk sizes to see if that had an effect on either hardware or software configurations.
Software raid software raid is raid which is implemented in software outside the storage controller, by an os driver. In this article i will share the steps to configure software raid 5 using three disks but you can use the same method to create software raid 5 array for more than 3 disks based on your requirement. Set up your sata configuration to raid in bios, save and exit. The mdadm utility can be used to create and manage storage arrays using linux s software raid capabilities. For things like simple mirroring raid1 the data just needs to be written twice and the drive controller can do that itself with instructions from the kernel so no need to get cpu involved at all. Onboard raid vs windows 10 raid speed test experiment. Configure software raid on a linux vm azure linux virtual. Jul 07, 2009 a redundant array of inexpensive disks raid allows high levels of storage reliability.
Firstly linux software raid is so well written in the kernel now that very little of the traffic actually hits the cpu. Correct me if im wrong intel says it augmented mdraid to support metadata from rste. To setup raid 10, we need at least 4 number of disks. So we have decided to include a thearitical study of raid and configuration of different levels of software raid in linux.
I can useshare that raid 10 volume under both debian and windows just as easily as i could a single disk. Hardware raid controllers appear in this list, but fakeraid. Jun, 2016 comparing hardware raid vs software raid setups deals with how the storage drives in a raid array connect to the motherboard in a server or pc, and the management of those drives. During the biosboot mode, the software aka firmware on the fakeraid board is in control. Raid is really important for servers, and like most server software on linux, it gets a lot of development attention. Ive seen some statements from sam that on linux, sw raid or fake raid doesnt have as big of a problem performancewise, whoa whoa whoa. The intel matrix fakeraid is called fakeraid because it disguises itself as hw raid when in fact it is sw raid. Presenting the storage as 6 x 4 disk hardware raid 10 s and then using lvm to stripe across them, gave over 2gbs sustained sequential io. There are very few motherboards with decent raid controllers builtin, though. Under software raid scenarios, such as using zfs volumes directly by windows or linux systems, is at minimum difficult but in most cases impossible. Fake raid is software raid sold has hardware raid for the express intention of duping customers. On raid 5, the chunk size has the same meaning for reads as for raid 0. Apr 21, 2018 i know the shortcomings of fakeraid vs true hardware raid.
I chose fakeraid for my desktop because it was a happy medium that would keep windows running in case of a hardware failure. May 30, 2015 hi, i want to buy two new hdd for my raid 1 mirror in desktop to store my data. With its far layout, md raid 10 can run both striped and mirrored, even with only two drives in f2 layout. It should replace many of the unmaintained and outofdate documents out there such as the software raid howto and the linux raid faq. Today we dive into what the differences are and whe we choose them. Linux raid is different from windows for sound technical. Its a common scenario to use software raid on linux virtual machines in azure to present multiple attached data disks as a single raid device.
For linux, software raid is provided by the md m ultiple d evices kernel driver and managed using the mdadm tool. How to set up software raid 0 for windows and linux pc gamer. Dec, 2005 now that i see how much bs the software raid is im thinking that a 3ware hardware raid controller with true linux support and a server motherboard with pci 64bit is probably worth the money because my time is worth a lot more than all this bs. Fake raid is essentially software raid provided by the bios on the. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. In this article i will share the steps to configure software raid 0 i. Software vs hardware raid nixcraft nixcraft linux tips. I have seen some of the environments are configured with software raid and lvm volume groups are built using raid devices. Where possible, information should be tagged with the minimum. Then after some reading about procons of fakeraid vs software raid, i made my mind and took the software raid path, as i wanted to have raid10 as root. But the real question is whether you should use a hardware raid solution or a software raid solution. Home forums linux forums howtorelated questions howto.
That said, linux software raid is more robust and better supported and. Raid 10 is the fastest raid level that also has good redundancy too. You can find a simple raid setup that doesnt consider uefi or dual booting here. Differences between hardware raid, hbas, and software raid.