XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question
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@scottalanmiller said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
Hardware RAID is great if you are willing to spend the money. LSI and Adaptec..
Since this chassis has 10 drives, there is no "efficient" way of using all 10 drives with an LSI 92xx-8i card. There is no room to add an expander.
A -16i card would be a waste of $$? -
@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
A -16i card would be a waste of $$?
Depends on your goals, but likely. That will be many hundreds of dollars and no faster than software RAID. It's mostly around support, both internal and external, that the hardware value vs. software RAID would be determined. Software RAID requires more knowledge to set up, monitor and support than hardware RAID does. And does not allow blind swapping which is a major issue if you move to colocation.
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Speaking of blind swapping, is there an easy way of mapping the /dev/sd"x" to the chassis slots?
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@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
Speaking of blind swapping, is there an easy way of mapping the /dev/sd"x" to the chassis slots?
No, the OS isn't chassis aware.
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@scottalanmiller said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
Installing XenServer to the SuperDOM would work very well.
I assume, it is "preferred" to not boot XS off the array?
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@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
@scottalanmiller said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
Installing XenServer to the SuperDOM would work very well.
I assume, it is "preferred" to not boot XS off the array?
Correct. It's possible, but the setup to do it is much more involved.
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How about installing XS on both SATA DOM's (using the Intel Fake RAID 1)?
This will let me have redundant copies of the XS install?
** I know Fake RAID is a no-no -
@travisdh1 said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
@scottalanmiller said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
Installing XenServer to the SuperDOM would work very well.
I assume, it is "preferred" to not boot XS off the array?
Correct. It's possible, but the setup to do it is much more involved.
Why not? In fact I would say quite the opposite. You probably do want to boot XS off the array. XS really pushes people away from booting from a SD or USB drive because of the work involved in making sure little to nothing writes to the those drives.
Basically, the same goes for Hyper-V.
Right now, of the main three (I'm skipping KVM) EXSi is the only one that's supported for end customer deployment. Sure you can get support for the others, but they are outside the primary scope.
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@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
How about installing XS on both SATA DOM's (using the Intel Fake RAID 1)?
This will let me have redundant copies of the XS install?
** I know Fake RAID is a no-noI wouldn't do this. I'd just install XS on the main array. You can use your RAID controller to setup the array, then create the partitions you need inside the array - example 50 GB for XS install and the rest for the SR.
If you're doing software RAID, I'm not sure the best way to go about that.
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@Dashrender Hardware RAID, I would say yes.
Though we are talking about software RAID...what to do? -
@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
How about installing XS on both SATA DOM's (using the Intel Fake RAID 1)?
There is, quite literally, no situation under which FakeRAID should ever be entertained as an option for anything. Ever. This cannot possibly be stressed enough.
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@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
** I know Fake RAID is a no-no
Not if you considered using it, ever. It's not a "slightly not recommended" kind of thing, it's totally and absolutely out of the question for any workload where you want any kind of reliability. You would never have RAID 1 on FakeRAID, it makes no sense at all. All the cost of redundancy and then destroying the reliability with FakeRAID. And Intel FakeRAID is worse than most, too!
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@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
Though we are talking about software RAID...what to do?
If you don't have hardware RAID, then you use enterprise software RAID that is part of XenServer. There shouldn't be anything to ponder. There are just the two options.
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@scottalanmiller said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
Though we are talking about software RAID...what to do?
If you don't have hardware RAID, then you use enterprise software RAID that is part of XenServer. There shouldn't be anything to ponder. There are just the two options.
How does that look?
a single boot drive that has XS on it? and that loads a driver that create the software RAID on the remaining drives in the system? Or can you include the boot drive? -
@Dashrender said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
@scottalanmiller said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
Though we are talking about software RAID...what to do?
If you don't have hardware RAID, then you use enterprise software RAID that is part of XenServer. There shouldn't be anything to ponder. There are just the two options.
How does that look?
a single boot drive that has XS on it? and that loads a driver that create the software RAID on the remaining drives in the system? Or can you include the boot drive?MD supports boot RAID. This isn't Windows
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@scottalanmiller said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
MD supports boot RAID. This isn't Windows
Is this the preferred method vs XS booting off SATA DOM, USB, HDD etc.?
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@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
@scottalanmiller said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
MD supports boot RAID. This isn't Windows
Is this the preferred method vs XS booting off SATA DOM, USB, HDD etc.?
SATA DOM is probably the way to go. Built just for this.
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@scottalanmiller said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
SATA DOM is probably the way to go. Built just for this.
How about redundancy for the SATA DOM?
I remember there was a previous thread about a USB stick, but that involved physically removing the stick & making a copy.
Whatever happened to having a "live" 2nd copy? -
@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
@scottalanmiller said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
SATA DOM is probably the way to go. Built just for this.
How about redundancy for the SATA DOM?
I remember there was a previous thread about a USB stick, but that involved physically removing the stick & making a copy.
Whatever happened to having a "live" 2nd copy?Assuming the system has ports and space for 2 DOM, then you just RAID them with MD as Scott mentioned earlier.
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@FATeknollogee said in XenServer install on SuperMicro: software RAID question:
How about redundancy for the SATA DOM?
SuperMicro recommends no redundancy.
