Hardware vs Software raid on Server?

[kuraai]

I'm looking at replacing a server for a small business. However I don't have that much knowledge about server hardware. I'm wondering whether it would be necessary or even preferable to have a hardware raid controller instead of just software raid.

 

It's gonna be a Windows server, separate VM's for FS and DC. But there's not really gonna be much data on there, it's mainly domain profiles and some user files. None of it is 'mission critical'. Would there even be any benefits to having hardware raid in this case? Maybe less downtime for hardware failure?

[Radium_Angel]

As long as you have a solid backup schema, it makes little difference, though personally and professionally I've always been a fan of hardware RAID.

[kuraai]

19 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

As long as you have a solid backup schema, it makes little difference, though personally and professionally I've always been a fan of hardware RAID.

Thanks, makes sense.

[Guest willies leg]

I like the flexibility software RAID gives you, big fan of it on Linux.

Never used software RAID on Windows, but have used hardware there, I guess Windows has better support for it.

[wseaton]

Since you don't have a big data requirement there's no need for spinning rust HDs.

 

Spinning rust benefits the most from hardware RAID. SSD be it SATA or NVMe not so much. You aren't running half a dozen Citrix VMs that benefit from HBA write through cash to reduce command queuing lag.

 

"Well, what if my SSD fails"

 

Stick to data center grade SSD. I prefer Intel and ditch the thought of hardware RAID since statistically your hardware RAID is far more likely to bork than a data center grade SSD. 

 

You literally only need an entry level biz server and a TB of SSD for this. Get a good offline backup. The money you save you can literally buy an identical budget server and keep it in a box next to the production one. MSPs hate it when I make this argument.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jde3]

As someone who works as a storage administrator I would never, ever, ever use a hardware raid.

 

Why? They are problematic because you are left to the options provided by the vendor for support with them. You have to think 10-15 years down the road because storage systems last forever. What vendor support contracts will you have in 15 years? Will you be able to find information on it when it breaks, what if you need the exact controller bios version?

 

You have to think about what a hardware raid really is also. It *is* a software raid running on a expansion card with some cache and it's own closed proprietary OS you can only manage with the vendors (total crap) software. Some unnamed person who works, or worse worked, for that company sat down and programed that software. Do you trust them more than the open source community and publicly auditable code?

 

Use open source here (such as ZFS) because it can always be supported, can cache in system ram, will last forever and you have a plethora of information and tools to work on it and solve problems. Also they run on commonly available hardware that you can always obtain.

[kuraai]

Alright thanks all. I'm definitely skipping the hardware raid then. Was going for enterprise grade SSD's anyway, so software raid it is.

[jde3]

Also for backups.. Off site tape backup might sound kind of funny in today's world of all cloud, but it's still widely used and cheep and might save a small business from a fire some day.