- #HP SMART ARRAY CONTROLLER IN HBA MODE FIND WWN SOFTWARE#
- #HP SMART ARRAY CONTROLLER IN HBA MODE FIND WWN WINDOWS#
HBAs perform the simple task of providing the hardware interface so that a drive can be accessed by the underlying operating system.
#HP SMART ARRAY CONTROLLER IN HBA MODE FIND WWN SOFTWARE#
These are really enterprise-class features added in successive ZFS versions.įor software RAID, one wants to purchase simple host bus adapters (HBAs) for use in systems. ZFS is a great example here as things like de-duplication, L2ARC SSD caching, encryption, and triple parity RAID-Z3. An example of migration not working using software RAID would be if one were to take Drobo drives and place them into another system without the proprietary RAID implementation.Īnother major advantage of software RAID is that one can get many advanced features with software RAID, and the feature set may expand over time. If a server fails, one can move drives to a new system with new HBAs and access data in most cases assuming that the vendor allows migration and the new system’s controllers are compatible. One big advantage of software RAID is that it can be hardware agnostic when it comes to migrating drives and arrays.
#HP SMART ARRAY CONTROLLER IN HBA MODE FIND WWN WINDOWS#
For purposes of picking hardware, if one continues use of Windows Home Server V1 Drive Extender, then the software RAID category is probably the place to look for ideas. Windows Home Server V1’s Drive Extender was not a RAID 1 implementation, but it utilize the CPU to make stored data redundant as can be attested to by anyone that has been impacted by DEmigrator.exe. Intel SASUC8I HBA and RAID 0/1/E based ControllerĬommon incarnations of software RAID would include the Oracle/ Sun ZFS, Linux’s mdadm, FlexRAID, Drobo BeyondRAID, Lime Technology’s unRAID, Windows Dynamic Disk based-RAID functionality, NetApp’s RAID-DP, and etc.
Those solutions do blur the lines a bit between pure software RAID, but as this is a general primer, I will focus on the common cases. Some hybrid solutions, like the Promise C3500 and C5500 based solutions use special embedded Intel Xeon processors with RAID functions built in to allow an OS to perform quicker parity calculations. Generally when one speaks of pure software RAID they mean a controller agnostic RAID platform that does mirroring, striping, and parity calculations using the CPU. Rather, this is to help guide the hardware purchasing decisions. This piece is really a high level overview that will not cover every RAID incarnation out there and cover them in-depth. This has been an article I have been considering doing for a long time, but with Windows Home Server 2011 being a hot topic it is more important than ever.
What it did not mention is that the the HighPoint’s onboard Marvell 88SE6485 is actually a simple I/O controller, and not a RAID on Chip solution making the HighPoint card a “Fake-RAID” solution. It is important that a user understands the relative strengths and weaknesses of different RAID philosophies, software RAID, “Fake-RAID”, and hardware RAID.Īs an example, a favorite site of mine, HomeServerShow recently reviewed a low cost Fake-RAID solution, the HighPoint 2680 SGL as an alternative to onboard RAID (appears to be the P55’s BD82P55 PCH’s controller from the pictures.) The review did a fairly good job of explaining the merits of an add-in controller such as, portability between motherboard vendors (one can easily migrate ICH9R to ICH10R RAID arrays for example, but not ICH10R to AMD motherboards, this card can transcend motherboard manufacturer differences), additional ports using SFF-8087 connectors, and potentially better RAID rebuild times.
This is a segment where without a very solid basic understanding of what the technologies involved are, a user can make a purchasing decision detrimental to their machine’s ultimate performance and data security. With Windows Home Server 2011 coming out in the near future many less experienced home users are looking into RAID subsystems to create larger storage pools.
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