Software Raid vs Hardware Raid

[elixir4274]

How to choose between software raid vs hardware raid?

what is pros & cons?

[Windows7ge]

I think a better question would be what do you need the server to do? There are pros and cons to each but which is better depends on your use case.

 

In some events people use both at the same time and setup correctly that's fine.

[AbsoluteFool]

8 hours ago, elixir4274 said:

How to choose between software raid vs hardware raid?

what is pros & cons?

Maybe this will help..

 

Software RAID often made under installation of operating system..

Hardware RAID = Software RAID on a hardware controller..

So called hardware raid often have a battery backup which software raid doesen't.

 

Also hardware controllers costs alot of $$$ compared to software raid.

 

Other than that you should think of what Windows7ge said..

[elixir4274]

I'M BUILDING THIS SERVER FOR SMALL BUSINESS USES

 

MAINLY WE DOING THESE WORKS ON THE SERVER.

 

1. USER AUTHENTICATION

2. FILE AND STORAGE SERVER 

3. APPLICATION SERVER

 

IN THIS CASE 

HOW TO CHOOSE RAID OPTION?

[AbsoluteFool]

2 minutes ago, elixir4274 said:

I'M BUILDING THIS SERVER FOR SMALL BUSINESS USES

 

MAINLY WE DOING THESE WORKS ON THE SERVER.

 

1. USER AUTHENTICATION

2. FILE AND STORAGE SERVER 

3. APPLICATION SERVER

 

IN THIS CASE 

HOW TO CHOOSE RAID OPTION?

IT STILL DEPENDS ON WHAT APPLICATIONS YOU ARE RUNNING. yOU NEED TO GIVE BETTER DETAILS OF THE APPLICATIONS YOU WANT YOUR SERVER TO RUN, E.G ARE THESE APPLICATION READ/WRITE HEAVY?

[elixir4274]

1 hour ago, AbsoluteFool said:

IT STILL DEPENDS ON WHAT APPLICATIONS YOU ARE RUNNING. yOU NEED TO GIVE BETTER DETAILS OF THE APPLICATIONS YOU WANT YOUR SERVER TO RUN, E.G ARE THESE APPLICATION READ/WRITE HEAVY?

WE ARE IN GARMENT MANUFACTURING BUSINESS SO WE ARE RUNNING AN ERP SOFTWARE BASED ON SQL SERVER DATABASE. WE ARE GOING TO CONNECT OUR WAREHOUSES ON THIS SERVER WITH CPE MODEMS AND OUR DESIGNERS STORING ALL OF THEIR WORKING PROJECTS DATA ON THE SERVER.

IN THE END I'M SAYING THAT ALMOST 30 TO 40 USER USING THIS SERVER SO READ/WRITE LOAD IS PRETTY HEAVY.

 

 

[leadeater]

Well I would say use ESXi and hardware RAID (basically a requirement for ESXi) and as long as you don't need many TB of space 2 SSDs in RAID 1 mirror will do. It's not the most resilient setup though.

 

The better solution is two servers running vSphere Essentials Plus with an external SAS storage array so you get HA of the hosted VMs in the event you get a hardware failure in one of the virtual hosts. You need to make sure you also go with a storage array that is dual controller to HA/redundancy there too.

 

Just get in contact with a Dell/HPE/Lenovo partner and tell them your requirements and they'll quote you a solution, if you're worried they will take you for a ride then compare their quote against my second recommendation, if it's more than that then get another quote from another partner.

 

You'll also need backups, Veeam is a good option for that. You will need separate backup storage which could either be cloud or a low/mid range NAS.

 

30 to 40 users isn't particularly demanding/load heavy btw, it can be but that'll be down to how the application performs. You can run a 2000+ student school off the 2 server + storage array setup using 10k RPM SAS and 7.2k RPM NL-SAS, you wouldn't use the 10k SAS now days though.