[KLUG Members] Linux Storage Server

[Mike Williams]

BIOS calls are slow and limited, so modern operating systems only boot
from the BIOS, then switch over to a more efficient driver.  You
configure the RAID system (how many  virtual drives, RAID levels, stripe
size, etc) in the card's BIOS usually, but you do have to tell the
kernel what kind of card the "drives" are connected to.  The driver will
be somewhat specific to the RAID card, although usually you only have to
specify a "family" of cards, not the exact model.  "Adaptec RAID card"
rather than "Adaptec 9895" or whatever they use for their RAID chips. 
I've never actually used hardware RAID, but old Compaq / HP Smartarray
cards are reliable and well-supported.  There should be plenty of used
ones still kicking if you want to check ebay or something.

Linux software raid, of course, is quite good, but hardware is better. 
Avoid most of the IDE RAID cards from Promise and such, whether on a PCI
card or integrated to the motherboard.  All RAID calculations have to be
done in the driver so they're really software RAID with a fancy BIOS. 
Hardware RAID cards for IDE drives do exist, but they're much more
expensive.  Most of the ones that support RAID 5, not just 1 and 0, are
probably hardware based.

Mark Kowitz wrote:
> RAID card module?  I assume that will be card specific?  That was my
> main concern . . .finding a older, cheap RAID card probably won't have
> linux drivers.  I was hoping the firmware would create the virtual
> drive and linux would just see it a generic disk drive in the BIOS,
> and not need a driver. I prefer hardware RAID vs. software, which is
> what, say, FreeNAS supplies.
>
> Thanks,
>
> mk
>
> On 11/22/06, Nikolas Reist <reisttech at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> In theory that will all work.  For linux to mount the volume,
>> however, the raid card module will need to be loaded.  SuSE and
>> Ubuntu server will do this all automatically (well SuSE requires
>> firewall tweaking on your internal NIC).  All my file and print
>> shares work right out of the box with very little configuration. 
>> Unless you need it to do something like manage account privaleges and
>> use domain specific login based permissions.  Then you will want to
>> go to http://samba.org and consult the documentation.
>>
>> Good Luck,
>>
>> Nik
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Mark Kowitz <mkowitz at gmail.com>
>> To: The main KLUG mailing list. <Members at kalamazoolinux.org>
>> Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 4:36:14 PM
>> Subject: [KLUG Members] Linux Storage Server
>>
>> Does anyone have any experience with building a storage server with
>> Linux as the OS?  Is it possible to create a RAID5 array using the
>> BIOS of, say, an Adaptec card (then you wouldn't need drivers,
>> right?), install Samba so Windows clients could see it, and then just
>> let it run?  Am I missing something?  Any other ideas?
>>
>>
>> Mark Kowitz
>> ---------------------------------------------
>> He is no fool . . .
>>     who gives what he cannot keep
>>              to gain what he cannot lose.
>> --jim elliot
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