Topic: Software RAID Performance

[Rick Evans]

Does anyone know the performance impact of software raid on SME 5.1.2?

I am going to set up a server at home with a pretty weak computer (PII 450, 128MB Ram, (2) 20 GB Hard Drives) and would like to know if I will be slowing the server down considerably by using software RAID?

Thanks for your help.

Sincerely,
Rick Evans

[Darrell May]

It's a trade off.  If you need RAID and a hardware solution is not in the budget then you go with software RAID.  Ram helps so at todays prices double to 256MB if you can.  You should be ok for a home system.

Regards,

[Monty]

I agree with the increase of RAM to help. If you can get your hands on a couple of SCSI drives, that will help also. IDE is not known for it's performance setting records. It is for your home, so don't be too concerned.

[Filippo Carletti]

Theory says: slightly worse write speed and light read speed increase, togheter with better seek times.
You'll find that even a pair of ide drives performs really well and the raid set has better performances than a single drive.
The kernel has a better "view" on disks and buffers activity than an hardware raid controller.