Re: [gentoo-user] which linux RAID setup to choose?

[Dale]

Caveman Al Toraboran wrote:
> On Sunday, May 3, 2020 1:23 PM, Wols Lists <antlists@××××××××××××.uk> wrote:
>
>> For anything above raid 1, MAKE SURE your drives support SCT/ERC. For
>> example, Seagate Barracudas are very popular desktop drives, but I guess
>> maybe HALF of the emails asking for help recovering an array on the raid
>> list involve them dying ...
>>
>> (I've got two :-( but my new system - when I get it running - has
>> ironwolves instead.)
> that's very scary.
>
> just to double check:  are those help emails about
> linux's software RAID?  or is it about hardware
> RAIDs?
>
> the reason i ask about software vs. hardware, is
> because of this wiki article [1] which seems to
> suggest that mdadm handles error recovery by
> waiting for up to 30 seconds (set in
> /sys/block/sd*/device/timeout) after which the
> device is reset.
>
> am i missing something?  to me it seems that [1]
> seems to suggest that linux software raid has a
> reliable way to handle the issue?  since i guess
> all disks support resetting well?
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_recovery_control#Software_RAID
>
>
>


I'd like to add something about the PMR/SMR thing.  I bought a SMR drive
without knowing it.  Now when I search for a hard drive, I add NAS to
the search string.  That seems to weed out the SMR type drives.  Once I
find a exact model, I google it up to confirm.  So far, that little
trick has worked pretty well.  It may be something you want to consider
using as well.  NAS drives tend to be more robust it seems.  Given you
are using RAID, you likely want a more robust and dependable drive, if
drives can be put into that category nowadays.  :/

Hope that helps. 

Dale

:-)  :-)