Fwd: Intel is doing something really stupid with RAID??

Thu Aug 30 10:39:32 PDT 2007

John,

I configured and installed one of these Intel RAID units this week for a
customer.  You are correct about the long build times - mine had three
Seagate 750GB SATA drives in a RAID 5 plus one for a hot spare.  I let the
build run overnight, shut the unit down, delivered and installed it, and it
took off from where it left off configuring the array.  I was glad to see I
could go ahead and map the drive, copy folders and files to it, etc. while
the array was building.  It really didn't seem to slow it down too much.
Otherwise it seems to be a neat little box and works well.

I think you are correct about starting over if you need to reconfigure
something on the array, although an e-mail or call to Intel tech support
couldn't hurt.

I did mention this to my distributor about the build time and that it should
be clearly stated on their ordering web site.

Steve Wiltsie
microCONCEPTS Div. multi/user/inc.        Since 1981
(812) 474-0127

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Asman" <jlasman at telus.net>
To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 12:12 PM
Subject: Fwd: Intel is doing something really stupid with RAID??

>
>
> --------------- Original Message ---------------
> At 01:09P Thu Aug 30 2007, John Esak wrote:
>
> Jim,
> Can you send this to the list for me. I'm having rdns problems from this
> location since we changed our T1.
> Thanks,
> John
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Esak [mailto:john at valar.com]
> Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 10:11 AM
> To: filePro mailing list
> Subject: OT: Intel is doing something really stupid with RAID??
>
> Okay, does anyone own a ss4000e NAS solution?  This is a box that allows
> you
> to put up to 4 drives in a small cabinet and build various types of RAID
> across the drives. It works great, but there is something SO stupid about
> it... we must be doing something wrong. Either that or the engineers at
> Intel need a course in the most basic aspects of file system
> administration.
>
> I've been building RAID systems since about 1989 or 1990 when we got
> involved with all the various new brands of volume and striping managers
> that were coming out at the time. It's not like I don't understand the
> process or the methodology. I just wonder if Intel is missing something or
> if I missed it in their administration software.
>
> They take you through initializing the drives for the first time. You pick
> your type of RAID. RAID 5 , or RAID 5 with a hot spare, or RAID 0 or RAID
> 1
> or RAID 10, etc., etc. You pick this option and the number of drives to
> include and it does the rest of *building the raid* which by the way takes
> about 14 hours on a 1TB set of drives (250Gb each). In the RAID 5 format
> we
> chose, this gives you the 750Gb of capacity and all is well with the
> world.
>
> Now, step 2 the RAID is built in this RAID 5 configuration, and you now
> pick
> the size of your file systems.... something on SCO which would be called
> "divvy". It asks you to fill in the size of a couple of base file systems
> to
> start with and labels them 'public' and 'home'. The home section is where
> new users get their home dirs, and th presumably you can use the public
> for
> anything else.
> Okay, still fine so far. Let's say you pick 375Gb for the first file
> system
> and 375Gb for the second. Off you and there is no space left on the RAID
> for
> what they call a "backup" area for their own proprietary backup client.
> Regardless, you hit the do it button and it now takes 14 (to 40) hours to
> establish this RAID and then put the file systems in place.
>
> Still good so far.
>
> now, suppose you want to change the size of those file systems. You want
> to
> divvy them up in a new way. On *any* system I've ever seen lo these 18
> years... any group of disks and their RAID controller... any operating
> system... anything whatever... you simply go through the divvy process
> again, destroy what is there and make some new file systems. There is
> ABSOLUTELY no reason on earth to completely rebuild the RAID again. The
> striping is *already* done, the RAIUD is in place and running *optimally*.
> You just go through the process of re-making your felsites the way you
> want
> them and start over with your stuff. End of Story.
>
> NOT SO WITH THIS Intel NAS box! For some unexplainable reason, it *forces*
> you to pick which kind of RAID you want, RAID 5, RAID 0, etc., before you
> get to go to the section on re-making your file systems (divvy)... and
> there
> seems no way around this. Are we (am I) missing something????  The damn
> thing takes *another* 20+ hours to re-stripe the RAID, *then* it puts on
> your newly sized file systems and folders.
>
> This is just beyond stupid. Once a RAID is built, there is no need to
> build
> it again unless it gets degraded somehow. And, doing this is *not* an O/S
> function... just a controller, i.e., RAID administration thing.
>
> So, I'm sure we are missing something... some way to *bypass* the stage of
> re-specifying a RAID type when it is already in place and on the drives.
> Or,
> has Intel just implemented the world's dumbest RAID box?
>
> By contrast, I have several Buffalo systems, several DELL systems, and
> many,
> many privately built RAID systems currently working that do not work in
> this
> brain-dead way. Are all these other companies and systems that much
> smarter
> than Intel?
>
> All of this is almost too hard to believe. The two operations should be
> broken into two completely separate functions, build your RAID, build your
> file systems... and never the twain shall meet.
>
> Somebody needs to inform Intel of this??
>
> John Esak
>
>
>
> Jim
> --
> jlasman at telus.net                      Spectra Colour Services Ltd.
> Jim Asman                              10221 144a Street
> Phone: (604)584-0977                   Surrey, BC  V3R 3P7   CANADA
> Cell: (604)619-0977                   www.spectracolorservices.com
>
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