[Lustre-discuss] Hardware or software RAID?

[Mark Dixon]

Hi,

Which method of RAID is preferred with Lustre: hardware or software?

This might seem like a daft question, but I'm a newbie. The list, 
operations guide and various "best practice" papers do not appear to 
express a preference.

I'm thinking about a system with:

* 2x failover MDS with a RAID1 or RAID10 volume
* 2x failover OSS with RAID5 or RAID6 volumes.

I'm trying to gauge whether it's worth having shared storage arrays for 
each failover set with hardware RAID, or just leave them as dual-attached 
JBODs.

My instinct says that hardware RAID from a reputable vendor is best - 
particularly because there's a battery-backed cache - but I see from the 
lists that Lustre has put a lot of effort in improving the Linux MD RAID 
layer.

Thanks,

Mark
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Mark Dixon                       Email    : m.c.dixon at leeds.ac.uk
HPC/Grid Systems Support         Tel (int): 35429
Information Systems Services     Tel (ext): +44(0)113 343 5429
University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
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