On 11/04/15 02:21, ToddAndMargo wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I have a customer interested in high end workstation. She wants RAID 1
> to protect her drives. She is also interested in Solid State Drives.
> (And she knows the difference between RAID and Backup.)
> 
> What host controller would you guys recommend for a pair of Intel
> SSDSC2BW480A401, 480 GB 2.5" Internal Solid State Drives in RAID 1?

I've followed this discussion for a little while, and there are a lot of
good information here - so thanks to everyone sharing their opinions and
experiences.

What I've not seen discussed here is the purpose of using RAID1.  I
guess it is related to avoid data loss in case one drive dies.  The
other thing I'm guessing is that SSD is wanted due to the performance.

Considering that the RAID technology is old which was designed for
rotating media, maybe that isn't the the best solution for SSD?
I'm wondering ... maybe another (possibly better?) approach would be
dm-cache?  This has been added as a tech-preview in RHEL7.

The purpose of dm-cache is to have a faster unit (such as an SSD) to
cache contents from a slower device (such as a ordinary hard drive).  To
have better data security, the ordinary hard drive(s) can be an md-raid
device.

Maybe dm-cache can provide the best from SDD, HDD and RAID combined?


Just my 2 cents.


-- 
kind regards,

David Sommerseth