2012-02-13, 11:15
All this is getting a bit frustrating. Just for the record, I look after several hundred Dell servers with Perc RAID controllers and four to eight disk (usually Samsung disks) RAID5 or 6 arrays. In fact as I type this I my own server is contentedly writing to a four disk RAID5 array on a Perc controller.
Anyhow, the performance of even the relatively puny four disk RAID5 on my server is substantially faster than the Gigabit network it's connected to. I get steady 100MB/s speeds copying to and from the server across the network. The big arrays are ridiculously fast. We use them on Hyper-V servers running half a dozen virtual machines and disk speed is rarely an issue.
The Perc is a relatively high end controller and would cost you around £250 new, though they're available for around £100 on ebay. My point is that it isn't that hard to get stellar performance from RAID.
JR
Anyhow, the performance of even the relatively puny four disk RAID5 on my server is substantially faster than the Gigabit network it's connected to. I get steady 100MB/s speeds copying to and from the server across the network. The big arrays are ridiculously fast. We use them on Hyper-V servers running half a dozen virtual machines and disk speed is rarely an issue.
The Perc is a relatively high end controller and would cost you around £250 new, though they're available for around £100 on ebay. My point is that it isn't that hard to get stellar performance from RAID.
JR