Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 17:02:21 +0200 (SAT) From: Johann Visagie <wjv@cityip.co.za> To: proot@horton.iaces.com (Paul T. Root) Cc: techsupport@nordicdms.com, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: DPT RAID controller support Message-ID: <E0yUYNJ-0001N5-00@ns.cityip.co.za> In-Reply-To: <199804291232.HAA10800@horton.iaces.com> from "Paul T. Root" at "Apr 29, 98 07:32:56 am"
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Paul T. Root wrote: > > > > You have a bunch of drives in a box. They are all plugged into the > > RAID controller. The RAID controller is plugged into a slot in the > > computer. The operating system must specifically support that RAID > > controller. > > This is 'software' RAID Not necessarily. Some operating systems (Linux, NT4(?)) have a kernel-level RAID implementation. This means that you can RAID any drives (SCSI _or_ IDE) merely by configuring your OS to do so. The situation described above sounds to me more like a host-based (hardware) RAID controller. These controllers (e.g. those manufactured by DPT) are basically expensive SCSI adapters which support RAID in firmware. Drives can be mounted both internally or externally to the main server casing, as is the case with SCSI per se. This I've done on Linux, and I'm about to test it with FreeBSD 2.2.6 sometime during the next few days (when I have time :-). The alternative is to do SCSI-to-SCSI RAID, where you have a RAID controller (usually) in an external box with the drives, which then connects to a SCSI controller internal to the server via a SCSI cable. This I've never done. > I guess something like a Network Appliance gets you away from even that. > I've heard a lot of good things about it, but haven't used one myself. I too have heard good things about NetApps servers, and the whitepapers on their web site are very impressive. I've heard that they're extremely expensive, though. -- V Johann Visagie | Email: wjv@CityIP.co.za | Tel: +27 21 419-7878 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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