[Novalug] best hard disk setup for home file server?

Richard Ertel richard.ertel@gmail.com
Wed Oct 14 16:21:02 EDT 2009


i still don't understand if using a non-TLER drive (like a wd caviar
green, or blue or black, for that matter) is a no-no for MD-RAID-5. if
using a TLER drive with MD-RAID is pointless, then i won't do it, as
it costs way more. what i do need, are drives that cooperate with
MD-RAID-5 (or rather, that MD-RAID-5 won't drop out of the array).

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 16:00, Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org> wrote:
> It means a card that ...
>
> 1.  Buffers into its own local, capacitor-based SRAM / battery-backed DRAM
> 2.  When the system recovers, it compares to the drive and re-commits if necessary
>
> You can't get that out of software RAID or on-board Fake/Free RAID (FRAID**).
> You have to have a card with its own, on-board intelligence that acts completely
> independent of the system, with its own, non-volatile SRAM and/or DRAM.
>
> So when the system recovers, the card then checks the drives as re-commits any
> incomplete commits (often while the system is still in POST/early booting).
>
> -- Bryan
>
> **NOTE:  I coined the term FRAID well before Rick Moen aka Linuxmafia.COM.
> I.e., had a near-flame war with him on SVLUG about it almost 2-years earlier
> when I was trying to explain to him that there are non-FRAID ATA solutions
> available, including those using the same IOP30x microcontrollers as SCSI
> designs.  He would later "come around" using the term Fake RAID (FRAID),
> which is quite post my publication using the term Fake/Free RAID (FRAID).  ;)
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Richard Ertel <richard.ertel@gmail.com>
>
> "Without an intelligent RAID card, things like TLER matter little."
>
> what exactly does that mean? that getting a "raid edition" drive that
> has TLER but not using an intelligent hardware raid card = a waste?
> that using a non-TLER "green" "cheap" drive with software RAID is ok?
>



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