Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

Michael wrote:

Bear in mind that what you are calling "true hardware raid" is really
a microprocessor programmed to do the raid algorithims. Usually these
microprocessors are stretched to the limit to handle the throughput
of modern udam drives. I don't know but I suspect that the small
overhead use in the mmu for software raid has far more and faster
throughput than any of these dedicated microprocessors..... and, you
can see the code and know it is bug free or will be if you report the
bug.  I am the unhappy owner of several Adaptec raid cards that have
onboard processors to handle not only raid, but command processing
for the scsi bus.

What exactly are you talking about here?  Are you using a multi-channel
RAID card to do RAID on one channel and SCSI-passthru on the other?
Please explain.

These turkeys have micro-code bugs that cause a
variety of problem for which there is no workaround or solution other
than trashing the cards.

What 'micro-code' bugs are you talking about?  What problems are you
talking about.  If you could provide some details to back up these 
claims, there might be some recourse.

Don't get me wrong, I thing the 3ware
product is exceptionally good, I just wouldn't use the raid code
given the choice of linux software raid.

Currently running 10 linux software raid boxes -- mix of raid 1 and
raid 5. Yes, I'm biased :-)

Michael
Michael@Insulin-Pumpers.org

Scott