On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 12:30, Scott <scottro@nyc.
> Just one minor example. I install a server. Linux can't work with the
> FAKE RAID card. I want to use software RAID. My boss says, fine, but
> what if a disk dies while you're on vacation. Can the Windows guys do
> it without having to look up documentation?
>
> Yes, you can hear all the arguments about it's FAKE RAID, md is better,
> etc. However, time and effort are also major issues.
> The amount of common HOST (AKA FAKE) RAID cards that aren't supported is
> rather suprising, especially when one considers RH's foothold in the
> server market.
>
> For low end, non-mission critical servers, these cards are convenient
> and cost effective. At any rate, it's just an example.
The only real place to blame for this is Adaptec. HostRaid is their
baby. All the built in LSI based raid systems I've ever seen just
work. Adaptec, at least at one point, had a working HostRaid driver
for Linux, but getting it was painful, and it was horribly managed,
IIRC... so updates were not frequent. I think they also insisted on
some creative licensing that caused SuSE and Red Hat to politely
decline to add it to the distribution.
that.
In any case, you're correct, it's a vendor issue, but more than that,
it's also an issue of Distros not pushing hard enough. And honestly,
at least in your example, they have no power to push anything. They
could go with "our multi-billion dollar customers demand this", but
those customers also generally use better technology ("real raid",
Fibre based SAN, etc) as opposed to machines with neutered raid chips
on the motherboard. It's hard to hit a company like Adaptec and say
"We want you to do this because a small handful of our customers want
the option".
Adaptec can just say, "So what?"
And then you're right back to where you started. You can't threaten
to drop all support for Adaptec cards because a lot of the support is
mainline, and you can't go to your own customers and say "Sorry, we
aren't going to support all those raid cards you use anymore because
Adaptec refuses to give us a driver you'll never use anyway."
For example, a large number of IBM servers have onboard raid via LSI
or Adaptec chips, HOWEVER, no one uses it. Anyone who wants RAID uses
an external card, either connected to a SAS or SATA enclosure, or via
fibre or iscsi to a SAN. At least, that's how it was... I think these
days they've dropped onboard raid from all but the Blades in favor of
"real" RAID cards that even get their own PCI or PCIE slot on the
motherboard, apart from the standard PCI bus.
OTOH, for low end, non-mission critical servers, a decent PCI raid
card that works is not terribly expensive either...
http://www.google.
of those would probably work...
And FWIW, Adaptec may STILL have a HostRAID driver available for
various Linuxes... We gave up on it years ago though and never looked
back.
--
Jonathan Swift - "May you live every day of your life." -
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