Re: Hardware RAID vs. Software RAID

> However, that's the least of your problems, since in these days of fast hard
> disks and battery-backed cache, the write penalty associated with RAID 5 is
> probably not such an issue as it used to be (in the mid-1990s, for
> example).

Sure, we've come a long with RAID 5 since the early 90's. In fact, we've come a long way with lots of things since the early 90's. It's been approx 10 years which is a lifetime in this business. Things like disk caching, faster processors to compute the parity bits, faster disk speeds, etc all lead to much better numbers than we achieved in the early 90's. However, we are also pushing forth much, much, much more data than we ever did in the early 90's. It all depends on your applications now. How about a database that captures clickstream data? Talk about pushing data through if your system is capturing clickstream data for a highly active web site, or sites. And in my world (govt spatial data), the volume of data has just exploded! We're talking loading GBs of data per hour as opposed to the early 90's when most systems didn't even have more than 100GB total! Processors have gotten faster, memory is faster, disk is faster, and so on. But we are also doing more with our resources. Sometimes technology leaps past the usage, and sometimes the usage leaps past the technology.

Just my 3.14159265 cents worth,
Brian

-- 
===================================================================

Brian Peasland
dba_at_remove_spam.peasland.com

Remove the "remove_spam." from the email address to email me.


"I can give it to you cheap, quick, and good. Now pick two out of
 the three"