RAID controller needed for SVM?

UNIX Solaris
1

hi

this may be a very stupid question, but im quite new to Solaris (gonna buid my first system, Solaris 10 on x86 system, connected to other windows systems in a home network)
i wanna put a RAID 5 system in there to back up my other systems at home; iv read that its really so easy with SVM to set up any RAID (after installing the OS, very practical :))

i still didnt figure out though if a real RAID HW controller is needed, or a pseudo HW controller (you know, those motherboard integrated Raid chips you find nowadays on mainstream mobo's) or nothing at all...

as a side question, after i configure the SVM to use a RAID 5, i wont have wasted any disk space somewhere, will i? (yes im a real fanatic :rolleyes:)

thanks in advance for any answers

2

use zfs to build your raid. it IS easy! all documentation you need is at http://docs.sun.com

3

By using SVM (or zfs) to create a RAID volume you will be using software RAID, so no need for fancy hardware. If you use hardware raid then you don't need SVM or anything like it, the OS just sees it as "a disk" and shouldn't care what kind of mirroring or data protection is going on.

By definition you will be using extra space if you use RAID5, but that is the price you pay for having your data protected.

4

thanks, thats all i needed to know.
i just doubted if i needed any sort of HW raid support;

thanks again

5

H/W Raid si good if you think of hot-swappablity in times of failure but maintenance and safer side would be to use S/W RAID (SVM). Its easy :slight_smile: