nVidia FakeRAID
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@coliver said:
Although, if they owned up to it and said it was a software RAID would that make it better?
Yes, because it stops being fake. The whole thing of FakeRAID is not that the RAID is fake, it is that the product's purpose is to dupe consumers into believing that it is hardware RAID and doing things that it is not.
The Fake refers to faking people out as to the software versus hardware handling of the RAID. FakeRAID is still RAID. Otherwise it would simply not be RAID at all.
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That's what makes Dell and HP different. They sell cards that they label as RAID but they make it VERY clear that cards do nothing and that all of the RAID is 100% in software running on the CPU. This makes them crappy, silly and a waste of money but it does not make them con artists.
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Many of these boards (running intel chipsets, I'm sure AMD has an alternative) have the ICHXX controller hubs. These use the CPU for RAID configuration and management. The software is on the board and isn't directly seen by the OS, although they require drivers for Windows to configure the array (I don't think you need them on Linux), the big difference between this RAID and a hardware RAID card is the location where the processing is done. Or am I missing something?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Chipset RAID is RAID. Fake RAID is not chipset RAID. It is software RAID pretending to be hardware RAID. Hence the term Fake. This is a standard industry term, it is not a grey area or in question.
There are rare chipsets that do hardware RAID, like AMD. But they are very rare. Does nVidia make any of those?
Yes, depending on the specific southbridge, RAID is just another option for the chipset.
What you are ranting about is chipset RAID. Every RAID controller requires a "driver" in Windows. Does an LSI controller become "fake" because you load a driver to read it in Windows?
The abstraction is standard to all lower level RAID chipsets, be it LSI or Intel or nVidia.
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Just so we're all on the same page here. Examples.
"hardware" RAID:
http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/chipsets/9-series
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A97/overview/"software / fake" RAID:
http://www.nvidia.ca/object/product_nforce_750i_sli_us.html
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5ND/I don't see any description or anything that would let me differentiate them here
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@PSX_Defector said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Chipset RAID is RAID. Fake RAID is not chipset RAID. It is software RAID pretending to be hardware RAID. Hence the term Fake. This is a standard industry term, it is not a grey area or in question.
There are rare chipsets that do hardware RAID, like AMD. But they are very rare. Does nVidia make any of those?
Yes, depending on the specific southbridge, RAID is just another option for the chipset.
What you are ranting about is chipset RAID. Every RAID controller requires a "driver" in Windows. Does an LSI controller become "fake" because you load a driver to read it in Windows?
The abstraction is standard to all lower level RAID chipsets, be it LSI or Intel or nVidia.
Nope, not what I am ranting about. I'm complaining about FakeRAID which is a different thing. There is no RAID harwdare and it does not encapsulate the drives.
Every RAID controller "needs" drivers, not really. The RAID array is always intact with a RAID controller regardless of drivers. Only FakeRAID and software RAID "need" drivers for the array to exist. Hardware RAID doesn't actually need drivers at all in some cases and only for post encapsulation duties in all cases.
I've already in the thread above stated that so that you are being silly talking about LSI. Obviously that isn't FakeRAID either by the definition I gave originally, the one that I gave now, common sense or the definition that Ubuntu has or just by standard industry knowledge.
I don't know how you got confused and brought chipset (hardware) RAID into this discussion but this is about FakeRAID which that is not. So I don't know what you are posting about.
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@MattSpeller said:
Just so we're all on the same page here. Examples.
"hardware" RAID:
http://www.amd.com/en-us/products/chipsets/9-series
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A97/overview/"software / fake" RAID:
http://www.nvidia.ca/object/product_nforce_750i_sli_us.html
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5ND/I don't see any description or anything that would let me differentiate them here
Exactly. I know that AMD and Asus were making hardware chipset RAID (NTG buys them a lot via HP commercial gear) and that nVidia and Intel do a lot of FakeRAID trying to trick people into thinking that they are chipset RAID. And, as you can see with PSX, it is working. They really do, most of the time, trick people into not understanding what they are seeing and even IT pros are often faked out. Hence the term, FakeRAID.
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@scottalanmiller So the only way to really tell, is to buy the thing, setup RAID in the BIOS, boot to a live CD and see if you see an array or a bunch of drives? There MUST be a better way to know.
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller So the only way to really tell, is to buy the thing, setup RAID in the BIOS, boot to a live CD and see if you see an array or a bunch of drives? There MUST be a better way to know.
Well, that's the best way. When you are dealing with a vendor lying to you, that's the case with ANY product. You can check product reviews, of course.
However, it isn't like you ever want chipset RAID either. While it isn't FakeRAID it is still pretty silly. For a low end desktop, whatever, but for a server? You don't want that either. You can improve your odds by working with enterprise vendors like AMD instead of consumer ones like nVidia and avoid vendors like Intel for chipsets who have sold their souls are their names mean zip. But that is about all. Vendors like HP and Dell will never sell you FakeRAID, you can rely on their reputations.
The best way to be sure is to only buy RAID that gives you the details like what CPU they are using, how much memory it has, etc. FakeRAID can't state those details as they don't exist. Chipset RAID will have will crappy details that will make it not sound very appealing, but will have details.
Enterprise RAID is normally 512MB or RAM or higher. Can't get that with FakeRAID. Nor can you get Flash Backing or Battery Backed Caches.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Exactly. I know that AMD and Asus were making hardware chipset RAID (NTG buys them a lot via HP commercial gear) and that nVidia and Intel do a lot of FakeRAID trying to trick people into thinking that they are chipset RAID. And, as you can see with PSX, it is working.
No, because I've heard this same shit over and over and over again since the beginning of time with regards to "chipset" RAID. It's stupid back in 2002, it's stupid now.
So your "definition" of fakeRAID depends on if the system can pierce the veil of the abstraction? I can do that on LSI cards, Adaptec cards, just about anything.
Does it do RAID functions? Yes. Just because I can do some low level things like SMART status doesn't make it fake.
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@PSX_Defector said:
So your "definition" of fakeRAID depends on if the system can pierce the veil of the abstraction? I can do that on LSI cards, Adaptec cards, just about anything.
Through SAS? No you can't. Show me that being done.
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@PSX_Defector said:
No, because I've heard this same shit over and over and over again since the beginning of time with regards to "chipset" RAID. It's stupid back in 2002, it's stupid now.
I think you are just confusing chipset (hardware RAID ) with FakeRAID. If you think that chipset RAID is FakeRAID no wonder you think that people are dredging the same thing up over and over again.
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@PSX_Defector said:
Does it do RAID functions? Yes. Just because I can do some low level things like SMART status doesn't make it fake.
See, you are confused. You think that it is the RAID that is fake. Like we've said over and over, it is not and you are being duped and confused about what the discussion is about. The "fake" in the name refers to the hardware being fake, not the RAID. Every time you mention chipset RAID or that the RAID it really RAID you are demonstrating that you are talking about something other than the topic of this thread and are confused as to even what FakeRAID is. So that you are stating that it doesn't exist obviously has no merit as you are not even talking about FakeRAID when you say that, you are talking about hardware RAID.
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Like I keep explaining over and over, FakeRAID is really RAID. It just isn't hardware RAID. Chipset RAID is hardware RAID and not part of the discussion.
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It's easy to see how well manufacturers like nVidia and Intel get people to be fooled into thinking they are selling hardware.
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Alright. Now that you've destroyed any good feelings I had for any hardware vendors, ever.... The more important questions remain.
What do you buy to setup a "cheap and cheerful" home lab setup. What is a good price for a 4 to 8 port RAID card (previously enjoyed?)? What should one look for?Edit: Also I think you need to adjust your definition of "common knowledge" lol
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Most of the time for a home lab you want software RAID or just get whatever hardware RAID comes with your server gear. You would rarely want to get hardware RAID on its own for home use.
If you do, Adaptec and LSI are the big names in hardware enterprise class RAID cards.
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@MattSpeller said:
Alright. Now that you've destroyed any good feelings I had for any hardware vendors, ever.... The more important questions remain.
What do you buy to setup a "cheap and cheerful" home lab setup. What is a good price for a 4 to 8 port RAID card (previously enjoyed?)? What should one look for?Edit: Also I think you need to adjust your definition of "common knowledge" lol
I would look at SAS or SATA expansion cards (or a motherboard with lots of SATA ports) and do an Linux MD RAID. Very easy to do and fairly robust (at least mine has been) much less expensive then a hardware RAID card. The cool thing, if you use XenServer you can do it at the hypervisor level and present sections of it to your VMs.
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@coliver said:
I would look at SAS or SATA expansion cards (or a motherboard with lots of SATA ports) and do an Linux MD RAID. Very easy to do and fairly robust (at least mine has been) much less expensive then a hardware RAID card. The cool thing, if you use XenServer you can do it at the hypervisor level and present sections of it to your VMs.
HyperV does software RAID too, it's crappy Windows software RAID, but for a home lab it is okay. Xen and KVM both have Linux MD RAID as an option. It is really only VMware that doesn't have software RAID included and leaves you needing something else.
There are a few third party software RAID options for VMware but HCL support is few and far between and often gets dropped so updates can be an issue.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@PSX_Defector said:
So your "definition" of fakeRAID depends on if the system can pierce the veil of the abstraction? I can do that on LSI cards, Adaptec cards, just about anything.
Through SAS? No you can't. Show me that being done.
SAS is just SCSI commands over SATA.
Any and all cards using SAS can pierce the veil of disk abstraction to the disk level.
