Software vs Hardware Raid?

[MarbleHornets]

I'm planning on making a home server/nas in the near future, and coming across many sites and forums I either see people using one or the other. Whats some of the pros/cons of either software raid or using a dedicated raid controller? Personal experiences/recommendations for either would be a helpful plus too.

[Electronics Wizardy]

What the budget and use case?

 

Normally software raid is better here, esp more advanced ones like zfs, btrfs and storage spaces.

[xriqn]

10 minutes ago, MarbleHornets said:

I'm planning on making a home server/nas in the near future, and coming across many sites and forums I either see people using one or the other. Whats some of the pros/cons of either software raid or using a dedicated raid controller? Personal experiences/recommendations for either would be a helpful plus too.

You're better off with a hardware raid in my opinion, purely because sometimes people can be clumsy and remove software (not that people are commonly that clumsy but it's still a risk factor all the same :P). Plus there's not much need then to mess around with application settings, all you might have to do is configure the hardware raid a tiny bit. But software raid can be useful for its more expansive features.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, xriqn said:

You're better off with a hardware raid in my opinion, purely because sometimes people can be clumsy and remove software. Plus there's not much need then to mess around with application settings, all you might have to do is configure the hardware raid a tiny bit. But software raid can be useful for its more expansive features.

but software raid normally is better at protecting data, in cases like zfs and btrfs, there more flexable, so easier to add drives, and cheaper as you don't need a card. And easier to move to anouther system. 

[xriqn]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

but software raid normally is better at protecting data, in cases like zfs and btrfs, there more flexable, so easier to add drives, and cheaper as you don't need a card. And easier to move to anouther system. 

I do agree with you on that but there's always the risk factor of being clumsy and removing that software. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, xriqn said:

I do agree with you on that but there's always the risk factor of being clumsy and removing that software. 

but thats why we have backups. You can't really just uninstall a software raid though.

[MarbleHornets]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What the budget and use case?

 

Normally software raid is better here, esp more advanced ones like zfs, btrfs and storage spaces.

Budget is...debatable. As annoying as it might sound, I don't so much have a fixed budget. I have a couple older computers (vista era HPs) that could be re-purposed, but I also work in a computer recycling center so I see a lot of older servers and hardware come though.  

 

Edit: Use case would be home media server, backups for computer imagining, and testing light vms on it as well.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, MarbleHornets said:

Budget is...debatable. As annoying as it might sound, I don't so much have a fixed budget. I have a couple older computers (vista era HPs) that could be re-purposed, but I also work in a computer recycling center so I see a lot of older servers and hardware come though. 

Id probably just get a older desktop, but 4x 8tb drives(or what ever size you want) and install a os like freenas.

[xriqn]

1 minute ago, MarbleHornets said:

Budget is...debatable. As annoying as it might sound, I don't so much have a fixed budget. I have a couple older computers (vista era HPs) that could be re-purposed, but I also work in a computer recycling center so I see a lot of older servers and hardware come though.  

 

Edit: Use case would be home media server, backups for computer imagining, and testing light vms on it as well.

I agree with you because older PC's really are a perfect way of making a small home server, especially if you avoid windows server and use a good lightweight linux distro and I even set one up as a small minecraft server once (2006 dell inspiron 530 with slightly modified specs). 

[kb5zue]

Thru all my years and experience what works best is what works for you.  Software and hardware both have their advantages.  Software has the advantage of adding or removing multiple drives, etc. BUT, hardware has the advantage of a "set it and leave it" type of deal.  Software gives you the options of changing drive letters, changing drive sizes, just a bunch of things.  But that also means the more fingers in the pie, the greater the chance of getting something wrong.  Back to the hardware, set it and forget it.  Software, again, the many options available.  But, the risk of accidentally changing the wrong setting, accidentally deleting the incorrect file or folder, etc...  Okay, so I'm biased towards the hardware basically because of the "set it and forget it" deal but those are my experiences because I have used both.  Just my humble opinion.  Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

[Razor Blade]

For something like a Freenas box passing the drives through to the OS to handle allows you to completely manage and maintain your array right from the freenas GUI.