Any recommendations for a cheap, reliable RAID 1 card?

[road hazard]

This will be going in a Linux Mint 19.2 box so Linux support is a must. I know, I know...."use MDADM/BTRFS/ZFS". I don't want to do that. I want to use a hardware RAID. This will be used to create a RAID 1 array for my boot drive.

 

I don't care about the card having a cache or BBU. Just want a solid card that's in the $50-$100 range. Nowadays, what card should I be looking at?

 

Thanks

 

 

[Nick7]

And yet again -> mdadm.

Supports RAID1 on boot drive.

 

If you really want raid card, a proper one, get some LSI SAS RAID card.

Just take one which supports 6gbit/s, as those also support HDD's > 2TB.

[Windows7ge]

I can't really comment on hardware RAID but LSI makes good RAID & HBA controllers. If you must use Hardware RAID don't cheap-out on the controller. It may come back to bite you if you do.

 

Is there a particular reason you're oppose to Software RAID? ZFS can be used to create a mirror on the boot drive.

[road hazard]

2 hours ago, Nick7 said:

And yet again -> mdadm.

Supports RAID1 on boot drive.

 

If you really want raid card, a proper one, get some LSI SAS RAID card.

Just take one which supports 6gbit/s, as those also support HDD's > 2TB.

Can you recommend an exact LSI model I should look for? What are your thoughts on the LSI 9240-8i for RAID 1?

 

Trust me, I'd love to use MDADM on my boot drive but have you ever tried to set that up with a desktop Linux distro? It's a nightmare and I've never had any success with it. It looks like just using a hardware RAID card for mirroring boot drives is about 10,000 time easier.

 

I use a MDADM RAID 6 array for my data drives and am very familiar with how awesome it is but setting it up on boot drives............ amazingly difficult for me. If you know of a guide for using MDADM on boot drives (that doesn't involve 347 commands) and works perfectly with non-server distros, I'd love to see it. I've found a few and non have worked for me.

 

I have a few weeks before all my gear arrives to build this backup server so I'm going to keep experimenting with getting MDADM to work but it just seems dropping in a hardware RAID card would make my life easier.

[road hazard]

2 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

I can't really comment on hardware RAID but LSI makes good RAID & HBA controllers. If you must use Hardware RAID don't cheap-out on the controller. It may come back to bite you if you do.

 

Is there a particular reason you're oppose to Software RAID? ZFS can be used to create a mirror on the boot drive.

Like in my other reply, there just doesn't seem to be a simple, easy to follow, foolproof guide (at least I haven't found it yet) that walks you through setting up an MDADM boot array during the installation of a non-server Linux distro.

 

If I get some time, I'll look into ways to try and convert a ZFS (or BTRFS) boot drive into a mirror setup. I'm a tiny bit reluctant to use ZFS or BTRFS file systems due to bad experiences with both many, many months ago.

[Windows7ge]

26 minutes ago, road hazard said:

Like in my other reply, there just doesn't seem to be a simple, easy to follow, foolproof guide (at least I haven't found it yet) that walks you through setting up an MDADM boot array during the installation of a non-server Linux distro.

 

If I get some time, I'll look into ways to try and convert a ZFS (or BTRFS) boot drive into a mirror setup. I'm a tiny bit reluctant to use ZFS or BTRFS file systems due to bad experiences with both many, many months ago.

I strive for making easy to follow step by step guides & tutorials

I don't have anything yet on setting up a Software RAID1 on a desktop Linux distro's boot-drive though. I think systemd gives you the option but I hear people talking about phasing that out for alternatives. Do note that RAID is not a backup. You may find something like Timeshift and saving the snapshots to a remote location would be more fullproof than a hardware RAID1 array.

 

I would argue that no File System is bulletproof and each has an intended application and dependencies. If they didn't work for you then to each their own but I love ZFS.

[Nick7]

18 hours ago, road hazard said:

Can you recommend an exact LSI model I should look for? What are your thoughts on the LSI 9240-8i for RAID 1?

9240 is OK for RAID1, but not for RAID5/6 (if you'll ever use it) - as it has no cache.

9260 does have cache.

 

As for 'easy' approach to RAID1 mdadm and boot device - yeah, it does require some work. I haven't tried it myself though.

[road hazard]

On 11/24/2019 at 1:52 PM, Windows7ge said:

Do note that RAID is not a backup. You may find something like Timeshift and saving the snapshots to a remote location would be more fullproof than a hardware RAID1 array.

Yup, RAID is not backup. And the reason I want to use RAID 1 for my boot drive is because when my main drive failed, I tried to use Timeshift to restore onto another drive and Timeshift failed me. So..... RAID 1 for boot drive and Timeshift just to have copies of all the data as a fallback.

[road hazard]

6 hours ago, Nick7 said:

9240 is OK for RAID1, but not for RAID5/6 (if you'll ever use it) - as it has no cache.

If you can think of a better RAID 1 card for Linux, I'm all ears! Probably buy it on Cyber Monday so I got a few more days of research left if a better card pops up.

[Nick7]

As I said, for RAID1, that card is completely fine

[road hazard]

12 minutes ago, Nick7 said:

As I said, for RAID1, that card is completely fine

Ok, thanks! Yeah, can't really see anything horrible about them review wise (other than lack of cache or BBU) but those are 2 things I'm not worried about so I guess I'll go ahead and grab one.