Raid 1 performance : software vs ICH9R

[matsoh]

Hello,

I'm building my NAS with the following configuration :
- SuperMicro MBD-X7SPA-HF-D525 + 4GB of RAM
- 2x HITACHI 5K3000 2To

I would like to configure my storage in mirroring.
My question : Is it better to create a raid1 with the ICH9R of the motherboard, or through FreeNAS storage option?
My filesytem will be ZFS.

 

[mav@]

RAID1 in ICH9R is also software, just assisted by BIOS. It's only benefits are compatibility with other OSes and more reliable booting from mirror. Both points are probably not important for FreeNAS box. ZFS working on several separate raw disks same time is highly preferable, as extra data copies and checksums available to it provide better chance to recover corrupted data.

 

[survive]

Hi matsoh,

FreeNAS doesn't support the integrated RAID in the ICH9R so a ZFS mirror would be you only option. This isn't exactly a bad thing as ZFS works best with direct control of the disks anyway.

One thing you want to be sure to check is whether the board will actually support 3TB disks.

-Will

 

[dannyb78]

just in case your motherboard fails or you'll want to upgrade your controller... you can easily move zfs volumes (like raidz), you'll probabily need an ICH9R to access your ICH9R created raid.

 

[mav@]

just in case your motherboard fails or you'll want to upgrade your controller... you can easily move zfs volumes (like raidz), you'll probabily need an ICH9R to access your ICH9R created raid.

Only partially true. You'll need board with same RAID BIOS vendor (Intel). FreeBSD graid driver can access these volumes independently of controller type, but indeed work on incompatible controller removes most of it's benefits.

 

[matsoh]

Thanks everybody for your answers. I will obviously configure the mirroring with FreeNAS !