August 11, 201213 yr I have my main windows OS (7 Ultimate) installed on a fast SSD. How you would setup data storage for fast access given the three options above. Other things to consider/Assume. Lots of CPU (Quad core+), Lots of RAM (16G+), mostly used to store VM datastores. Your not worried about crashes of a drive and losing data (have a great backup system). I keep leaning towards just using Windows Software. Why - easier to transfer to other systems (should hardware die, etc). I keep reading horror stories of the hardware options (and I'm comparing to hardware cards that don't have on-board battery protected memory) that if the card dies, you have to get the same one to get your array up and running (sometimes means you have to wait a few days/weeks until you get a spare). So partly what I'm looking for is confirmation that the Software Raid route is safe/easier and about just as fast as the options in subject. So just stick with software raids unless I'm going to move to total hardware raid cards with a cache? Thoughts/comments/experiences please
August 11, 201213 yr Software raid or Intel ICH unless you are using a caching controller and can deal with the costs. On my unRAID I use an Areca ARC-1200 in advanced raid mode. Works great for that environment. I doubt I would use it for my desktop. I would use Software or Intel ICH raid first.
August 11, 201213 yr Author Software raid or Intel ICH unless you are using a caching controller and can deal with the costs. On my unRAID I use an Areca ARC-1200 in advanced raid mode. Works great for that environment. I doubt I would use it for my desktop. I would use Software or Intel ICH raid first. I have a ARC-1200 that I use in an ESXi box for a Mirrored Data store array and it works great for that (very fast, don't notice the mirror speed at all with Dual 2TB WD Black drives I easily get 100MB write speeds to it). But doubt it would make sense to use in a RAID0 Windows environment. I just got an ARC-1210 for a great deal, so may test out RAID0 on it before putting it to real work.
August 11, 201213 yr Software raid or Intel ICH unless you are using a caching controller and can deal with the costs. On my unRAID I use an Areca ARC-1200 in advanced raid mode. Works great for that environment. I doubt I would use it for my desktop. I would use Software or Intel ICH raid first. I have a ARC-1200 that I use in an ESXi box for a Mirrored Data store array and it works great for that (very fast, don't notice the mirror speed at all with Dual 2TB WD Black drives I easily get 100MB write speeds to it). But doubt it would make sense to use in a RAID0 Windows environment. I just got an ARC-1210 for a great deal, so may test out RAID0 on it before putting it to real work. I would definitely use the Areca ARC-1200 or ARC-1210 for an ESXi mirrored Data store without hesitation. Since you want the paramount of performance for a desktop I would probably use software RAID0 or RAID1 or the hybrid of RAID0/RAID1 for a windows desktop. Since each drive would have full SATA speed and usually the controller chipset communicates at a very fast speed with a direct channel. Now if you had the cash for an x8 Areca controller with large amounts of cache, I would use that. But for a basic desktop, I think software or Intel ICH RAID0 will suffice with minimal expenditure. If using any form of RAID0, it's of paramount importance to have regular (or automated backups).
August 11, 201213 yr Author If using any form of RAID0, it's of paramount importance to have regular (or automated backups). I've been on here long enough: For "My documents" I have an auto sync script on changes to my UNRaid box with versioning. Then nightly backups to an offsite system. Then I have any other important files synced to UnRaid either nightly (for smaller sets) or 1-2x/week for things like my VM data stores. For example; if I lost one of my RAID0 arrays - at worst I lost a few days of the VM changes, but any files of importance on the VM will have backed up nightly to UnRaid, so I power on my latest backup of the VM datastore, sync back the documents (perhaps install a new program, but very unlikely), and voila, I'm back in business.
August 16, 201213 yr ARC1200 Support in ESXi split to here -> http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=22045.0
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