Re: Need advice on RAID5

In article <DG8MCp.5BI_at_mv.mv.com>, bobolink_at_mv.mv.com (Bobolink) wrote:

-One comment: Oracle doesn't like RAID, especially RAID5. We
-learned that the hard way. Either mirror (RAID1) or don't use
-RAID at all.

I understand that there is a white paper published by Oracle and one of the RAID vendors that suggests that RAID 5 needs 64mb cache on the controller to eliminate the write penalty.

I was looking into using RAID5 and decided, based on the write penalty and what I feel is no real advantage other than fewer disks, to use mirroring and OS striping. Our application isn't large enough to make the extra disk drives a major cost factor. If I had a VLDB, I'd have to reconsider and would possibly opt for RAID5 if I could find a solution that solved the write penalty - that is, of course, if my application wasn't just a warehouse.

Glenn Stauffer
DBA
Swarthmore College

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