
Softraid vs hardware raid software#
Software RAID is used exclusively in large systems (mainframes, Solaris RISC, Itanium, SAN systems) found in enterprise computing.Gains in backup and restore performance may be unnoticeable if an additional hardware RAID card is added to the system. Modern multi-core server CPUs are powerful enough to handle backup and restoration without a lot of system strain.When might software RAID be a better option?ĭedicated RAID hardware does not always provide the best solution. Adds system compatibility with enterprise SAS HDDs, which are designed for 24/7 operation and have extra error correcting features compared to consumer-grade SATA III HDDs.Battery backup units (BBU) or onboard Flash memory in RAID cards provide the extra fail-safes here. Protection against data corruption resulting from a loss of power during the backup process.Adds RAID configuration options that may otherwise be unavailable using just the motherboard-like RAID 5/6, for example, which provides one and two drive failure tolerance.Translates to less strain on the system when writing backups, and less downtime when restoring data. Boosts system performance for backups and restoration, especially in legacy equipment with limited processing power, by adding DRAM cache memory to the system.What does a RAID controller do for a computer or server used for data backup and recovery? When storage drives are connected directly to the motherboard without a RAID controller, RAID configuration is managed by utility software in the operating system, and thus referred to as a software RAID setup. In a hardware RAID setup, the drives connect to a special RAID controller inserted in a fast PCI-Express (PCI-e) slot in a motherboard. Comparing hardware RAID vs software RAID setups deals with how the storage drives in a RAID array connect to the motherboard in a server or PC, and the management of those drives.
