Best southbridge for RAID fileserver

[durangowildlife]

Anyone have an opinion on the best southbridge for a fast [low cost] file server?

I'm putting together a gigabit fileserver using two striped, RAID 0, Velociraptor drives [backed up to a WD green every N hours].

Originally I planned on using software RAID with an AM3 board to keep costs down since the raptors are still a bit steep, but then I came across this article on Tom's:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...a,2374-14.html

If you're using Linux software RAID rather than BIOS RAID, does the southboard really make a differences -- especially for something as simple as two striped drives? Has anyone come across a benchmark comparing ICH10R BIOS RAID to Linux-based software RAID?

[stevea]

I strongly suggest you not use the bios/fake-raid but use Linux software raid instead. It's simpler to reconstruct if your mobo dies. Works with any interface. The performance is virtually identical to fake-raid when I did RAID-0 & RAID-1 tests (ICH8).

The other question - which enet chip should you use ? GigE performance isn't close to optimal unless you use jumbo packets, but to avoid re-transmits and packet fracture you need to make your LAN mostly use the same Jumbo packet (mtu) size. Some of the low-end Intel GigE interfaces don't support Jumbo packets (it's on the intel website). Almost every non-server mobo [[with the exception of some Asus & Asrock with Intel & Marvelle]] use the RealTek 8111. The Linux driver for RL8111 has/had some issues . I asked on this forum before if anyone had performance data & jumbo capability info on the 8111, but no replies.

best wishes,

[durangowildlife]

Thanks for the response. Would you say that because of software RAID the choice of southbridge isn't as much of an issue? Seems like two striped raptors should perform equally with Intel or AMD-based boards [processor would be a Core 2 Duo or Phenom II X3]. So far all the benchmarks for software RAID I've found are from 5+ years ago.

---------- Post added at 09:38 PM CST ---------- Previous post was at 08:45 PM CST ----------

You're right about the feeble ethernet, found this 775 board that supports jumbo frames, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813121357

I think I could use that and a dual-core Celeron -- this is a file server only, so that should be more than enough CPU power for RAID0.

[durangowildlife]

Ended up using the Intel DQ45CB, two striped (RAID 0) WD Velociraptors, which are being backed up to a WD "green" drive with rsync every X hours -- this makes more sense to me than RAID 10 for this setup.

-Set drives to IDE in Intel BIOS for install, then switched to AHCI.

-Disks are partitioned like:

Drive A: boot partition (/boot), software RAID (/), swap
Drive B: software raid (/), swap
Drive C: backup (/backup)

I didn't see any reason to bother separating /home and /usr on the RAID since I have the backup, e.g., when it's time to do a fresh install I can wipe everything but /backup.

The Celeron E3300 seems more than adequate so far, although I suspect it's the reason big yum updates aren't as fast as I'd expected, i.e., the CPU is the bottleneck when there are thousands of files to update.

Will have a better idea of the performance in the coming weeks.