CentOS - Nov 2017 - low end file server with h/w RAID - recommendations

On Sat, November 4, 2017 4:32 am, hw wrote:
> Valeri Galtsev wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, November 3, 2017 3:36 am, hw wrote:
>>> Valeri Galtsev wrote:
>>>> If you have not Dell server hardware my choice of [hardware]
RAID
>>>> cards
>>>> would be:
>>>>
>>>> Areca
>>>
>>> Areca is forbiddingly expensive.
>>
>> Yes, and it is worth every dollar it costs. All good RAID cards will be
>> on
>> the same price level. Those cheaper ones I will not let into our
stables
>> (don't get me started ranting about them...)
>
> How does spending between 300 and 800 for an Areca 8 port pay out when you
> can get a P410 for less than 100?  Are they 3--8 times faster, 3--8 times
> easier to replace, 3--8 times more reliable, 3--8 times easier to use,
> 3--8 times more durable, 3--8 times more energy efficient?  What is it
> that
> makes them worthwhile?
HP P410 controller is by no means close and by no means comparable with
any of Areca RAID controllers. If I'm reading the description correctly,
P410 supports: RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10

All the machines I need hardware RAID on use RAID 6, anything not capable
doing it is out of consideration. I can do trivial thing like mirror or
striped concatenation (RAID-1) of two devices by any brainless controller,
and speed where RAID-1 is concerned has to do with speed of devices
themselves, not that trivial "chop and shove to different devices"
controller.

Sorry, one can not compare slingshot with machine gun (my apologies about
"politically incorrect" comparison).
>
>> [...]
>>> I like CLIs and don????t like web interfaces ...
>>
>> I _am_ a command line person myself. Yet, when dealing with RAID, I do
>> prefer GUI interface, as it is much harder to screw up when you use
>> 3ware
>> web interface, compared to, say, 3ware command client interface, the
>> last
>> being much better and clearer than LSI command client... Again, it can
>> be
>> just me, or it can be the same for many people that our perception of
>> things in GUI is less prone to grave mistakes.
>
> It??s much easier to click the wrong button in a GUI than it is to enter
> the
> wrong command in a cli.
I know, people are different, I leave it it to everyone's own decision
with oneself. The very first screwup may confirm one's beliefs or change
them to opposite.
> If the cli is poor, the gui may seem much better
> ---
> I have a switch like that and I??m pissed that the cli is so bad.
> Unfortunately,
> there aren??t any decent 1GB switches with at least 24 ports that are
> fanless :(
>
> And how do you automate a gui?
I do not. As web interface 3ware has is provided by the daemon, in which
you can configure all automated actions you need, and that daemon will do
it according to your schedule (but rather the controller itself does most
of them as configured through web interface). Those who used 3ware cards
do know it and do use that nice feature.
>  That??s way easier to do with a cli.
And yes, when with one controller GUI daemon was failing to do one task I
needed, I did use UNIX cron job which was executing what was necessary
through cli interface.


This does not change my perception that _I_ with my mentality have less
chance to screw up and obliterate RAID array when I need, say, to start
rebuild if _I_ use GUI web interface, as opposed to command line interface
(cli). Even if it is just me, I stay convinced to keep doing it this way
which is safer for the data of my users that live on RAID I am dealing
with.

And still after all that said, I am basically command line person ;-)

Valeri
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>

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On 2017-11-04, Valeri Galtsev <galtsev at kicp.uchicago.edu>
wrote:
>
> On Sat, November 4, 2017 4:32 am, hw wrote:
>
>> If the cli is poor, the gui may seem much better
Indeed.  Before the storcli tool came out, the only CLI tool for the LSI
cards was MegaCli, and it was atrocious.  In that case I can imagine the
GUI being preferable (even though the GUI isn't very good either).

Even the storcli tool isn't very good (as I've mentioned).  I can
completely understand someone preferring MSM (the daemon which provides
the backend for the GUI tool) over storcli.
> I do not. As web interface 3ware has is provided by the daemon, in which
> you can configure all automated actions you need, and that daemon will do
> it according to your schedule (but rather the controller itself does most
> of them as configured through web interface). Those who used 3ware cards
> do know it and do use that nice feature.
I never used the 3dm2 web GUI.  I thought it was stupid and greatly
preferred tw_cli.  You can set at least scheduled verifies through
tw_cli. (I don't know if you could use the 3dm2 GUI to schedule other
tasks.)  I only use 3dm2 to send out email alerts.  I tried using MSM to
send out email alerts but I got way way too many alerts for trivial
events, so I ended up disabling it.
> This does not change my perception that _I_ with my mentality have less
> chance to screw up and obliterate RAID array when I need, say, to start
> rebuild if _I_ use GUI web interface, as opposed to command line interface
> (cli). Even if it is just me, I stay convinced to keep doing it this way
> which is safer for the data of my users that live on RAID I am dealing
> with.
This is probably the most important consideration.  Keeping our data
safe is more important than a CLI vs GUI religious war.  :)

Recently I had to use the LSI BIOS' GUI to configure arrays.  Let me tell
you, that was really no fun at all.  It was still point and click but
the GUI was so clunky that it was very difficult to tell what I was
doing.  And the help was useless, so I had to go to my laptop to do
research on some of the options that the controller was asking about.

--keith

-- 
kkeller at wombat.san-francisco.ca.us

On Sat, November 4, 2017 1:56 pm, Keith Keller wrote:
> On 2017-11-04, Valeri Galtsev <galtsev at kicp.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, November 4, 2017 4:32 am, hw wrote:
>>
>>> If the cli is poor, the gui may seem much better
>
> Indeed.  Before the storcli tool came out, the only CLI tool for the LSI
> cards was MegaCli, and it was atrocious.  In that case I can imagine the
> GUI being preferable (even though the GUI isn't very good either).
>
> Even the storcli tool isn't very good (as I've mentioned).  I can
> completely understand someone preferring MSM (the daemon which provides
> the backend for the GUI tool) over storcli.
>
>> I do not. As web interface 3ware has is provided by the daemon, in
which
>> you can configure all automated actions you need, and that daemon will
>> do
>> it according to your schedule (but rather the controller itself does
>> most
>> of them as configured through web interface). Those who used 3ware
cards
>> do know it and do use that nice feature.
>
> I never used the 3dm2 web GUI.  I thought it was stupid and greatly
> preferred tw_cli.  You can set at least scheduled verifies through
> tw_cli. (I don't know if you could use the 3dm2 GUI to schedule other
> tasks.)  I only use 3dm2 to send out email alerts.  I tried using MSM to
> send out email alerts but I got way way too many alerts for trivial
> events, so I ended up disabling it.
>
>> This does not change my perception that _I_ with my mentality have less
>> chance to screw up and obliterate RAID array when I need, say, to start
>> rebuild if _I_ use GUI web interface, as opposed to command line
>> interface
>> (cli). Even if it is just me, I stay convinced to keep doing it this
way
>> which is safer for the data of my users that live on RAID I am dealing
>> with.
>
> This is probably the most important consideration.  Keeping our data
> safe is more important than a CLI vs GUI religious war.  :)
>
> Recently I had to use the LSI BIOS' GUI to configure arrays.  Let me
tell
> you, that was really no fun at all.  It was still point and click but
> the GUI was so clunky that it was very difficult to tell what I was
> doing.  And the help was useless, so I had to go to my laptop to do
> research on some of the options that the controller was asking about.
Here I would agree 100%. I used LSI BIOS "GUI" interface and
didn't like
it at all. It is more like "norton commander" or "midnight
commander" if
anybody still remembers those DOS tools. Anyway, in that LSI BIOS
"GUI" I
ended up disregarding mouse, and navigating and choosing actions just by
keyboard ("tab" and "enter" keys, sometimes "esc"
key IIRC). I kind of
even didn't think that one could consider that GUI...

Valeri
>
> --keith
>
> --
> kkeller at wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On 11/4/2017 11:39 AM, Valeri Galtsev wrote:
>> How does spending between 300 and 800 for an Areca 8 port pay out when
you
>> can get a P410 for less than 100?  Are they 3--8 times faster, 3--8
times
>> easier to replace, 3--8 times more reliable, 3--8 times easier to use,
>> 3--8 times more durable, 3--8 times more energy efficient?  What is it
>> that
>> makes them worthwhile?
> HP P410 controller is by no means close and by no means comparable with
> any of Areca RAID controllers. If I'm reading the description
correctly,
> P410 supports: RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10

you need the optional cache module and the feature option for the p410 
to support raid 5/6.?? I always ordered my HPs with the larger cache and 
the 'flash backed writeback cache' option rather than battery backed 
(flash backed uses supercaps which last approximately forever, while 
raid battery backup tends to fail in 3-4 years).

p410 is already quite obsolete, the gen8 servers I ordered a couple 
years ago came with P420, I don't doubt thats been replaced in gen9 stuff.

my personal preference is to get rid of the raid cards entirely and use 
plain SAS HBA's with OS native raid support, for everything but 
dedicated windows servers.



-- 
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz