Install on Soft Raid

[lastguru]

Well, if you want software RAID, just use documented Lenny installation guide to install Proxmox over an existing debian system, or use the method I described earlier... It is opensource, after all

It is an interesting point, however, whether Proxmox team would accept community patches etc...

 

[meto]

Well, if you want software RAID, just use documented Lenny installation guide to install Proxmox over an existing debian system, or use the method I described earlier... It is opensource, after all

It is an interesting point, however, whether Proxmox team would accept community patches etc...

The question is - would it be valid for Proxmox 2.x?

 

[suffixer]

+1 for Tom.
Have used softraid on proliant and will never do again. Problem did occur, never on our HW raid servers.
So no point in supporting SWraid on production servers.

Sent from Android using tapatalk.

Are you confusing Linux software RAID (mdadm) with the 'fakeRAID' (enabled in the BIOS, sometimes referred to as 'software RAID') that a lot of servers provide onboard?
The latter is terrible - I am not talking about that...

 

[meto]

Are you confusing Linux software RAID (mdadm) with the 'fakeRAID' (enabled in the BIOS, sometimes referred to as 'software RAID') that a lot of servers provide onboard?
The latter is terrible - I am not talking about that...

+1 @up
swRAID is generic, that's awsome! Perfomance-wise is getting better and better.

--Update
How about SSDs? They work better without hwraid.

 

[proxymoxy]

I read the whole thread. So I guess there is no chance that we ever get a software raid option.

But I vote for it

I checked many hosting providers. It looks like that I can get decent a dedicated server with two disk for $85 per month (for my purposes . But if I add a hardware controller I have to add $30, with bbu $50 per month! That is pretty expensive. I realize that software raid is not as good as hardware raid. But the loss in the worst case scenario would be definitely less than the money spent on hardware RAID (in my case - "low-end").

One of the reasons why I found Proxmox it basically because it is free. I could imagine that many budget minded users found Proxmox for the same reason. And exactly this group of users would need software raid.

Just to clarify, I am not saying that proxmox is not an enterprise class product. From all what I read it actually is.

Unfortunately Proxmox is too expensive (even though it is free, but the hardware raid ...) and I have to find another solution.

Proxmox might think, that they don't want low-end users like me anyway ('cause no money . But here is what usually happens. A good percentage of those budget minded users upgrade sooner or later, may be don't have the time to do everything on their, may be need a support subscription. This would be lost business for proxmox.


----------------
[Dear moderator this is not advertisement, but if you don't like it please feel free to remove the part below, if you think this could impact your business]

I probably will go with Cloudmin now. the GPL version is free for KVM and Xen and integrates with Virtualmin and Webmin. If you have to have OpenVZ you could buy a license (15$ per month, cheaper than hardware plus support).

 

[tom]

I read the whole thread. So I guess there is no chance that we ever get a software raid option.

future technologies can change a lot. btrfs, sheepdog, etc.

I checked many hosting providers. It looks like that I can get decent a dedicated server with two disk for $85 per month (for my purposes . But if I add a hardware controller I have to add $30, with bbu $50 per month! That is pretty expensive. I realize that software raid is not as good as hardware raid. But the loss in the worst case scenario would be definitely less than the money spent on hardware RAID (in my case - "low-end").

there are hosting provider offering softraid, also with Proxmox VE.

One of the reasons why I found Proxmox it basically because it is free. I could imagine that many budget minded users found Proxmox for the same reason. And exactly this group of users would need software raid.

yes, use it. we do not prevent it, we just don´t support softraid in our commercial subscriptions which you do not purchase anyway.

Just to clarify, I am not saying that proxmox is not an enterprise class product. From all what I read it actually is.

Unfortunately Proxmox is too expensive (even though it is free, but the hardware raid ...) and I have to find another solution.

Proxmox might think, that they don't want low-end users like me anyway ('cause no money . But here is what usually happens. A good percentage of those budget minded users upgrade sooner or later, may be don't have the time to do everything on their, may be need a support subscription. This would be lost business for proxmox.


----------------
[Dear moderator this is not advertisement, but if you don't like it please feel free to remove the part below, if you think this could impact your business]

I probably will go with Cloudmin now. the GPL version is free for KVM and Xen and integrates with Virtualmin and Webmin. If you have to have OpenVZ you could buy a license (15$ per month, cheaper than hardware plus support).

just a note: cloudmin is a management tool, Proxmox VE is a distribution optimized for virtualization with management tools. so you should be careful if you compare different things.

 

[proxymoxy]

I understand (now). I guess my main point was that you likely miss an opportunity if you lose all these budget minded users (that found you because of the price and not only the features).

Thanks for the quick response though. This is probably a good indicator that the support subscription would be worth the money.

 

[jollyscots]

QNAP and other NAS vendors use software raid.

This discussion was started 3 years ago.. perhaps it is time that Proxmox at least allowed a RAID1 setup for small time users.

Clearly todays CPU's can handle the work load. The speed argument is irrelevant.
As for reliability: It's better than nothing. Battery or no battery, at least a drive crash causes no interuption. There should be a backup.
As for data security: Backup, backup... and more backups.

As for backups: This is where virtual machines come in handy.

Edit: 5 years ago.

 

[proxymoxy]

I agree completely

Some people (also from the proxmox team) argue with the "data consistency"/"power off" issue in software raid ("no bbu"). This is true to some extent, but other important tools like vzdump create backups using snapshots which is somewhat like a backup after "power off" ...

But I think the true reason is, that it is difficult/costly to implement software raid support.

Proxmox is (unfortunately) a distribution, that basically means the proxmox installer would have to handle the software raid part (I believe). This is not an easy task. In the end proxmox has to ask why should they invest in this? None of their paying customers would need this feature, because these customers always have hardware raid (because they can afford it

 

[dietmar]

Proxmox does not put any restriction one the storage type, you can use whatever you like (you can use the standard Debian installer for such setups). But commercial offering does not include support for software raid.

 

[dietmar]

Proxmox is (unfortunately) a distribution, that basically means the proxmox installer would have to handle the software raid part (I believe).

Please do not spread such nonsense. You can install Proxmox on top of any Debian installation. So you can easily use the Debian installer if you prefer that.

 

[fortechitsolutions]

Just a quick footnote, for what it is worth.

- This issue has been discussed a fair bit already
- I think the position of the folks who build and support Proxmox is perfectly clear - they don't wish to support software raid. Period.
- It is also quite clear, that you can run proxmoxVE on software raid; just not via a trivial feature integrated in the appliance installer CD/ISO
- instead you need to read the forums, find the way to do a clean install and then migrate to software raid.
- for what it is worth, I've got a dev / testing host running proxVE with SW raid and it works fine - it has been running this way >1 year now. As expected the IO performance is not fantastic but then again the hardware is not fantastic. It is a dev host, doing non-production stuff - but still important enough to me that I prefer to not allow a hard drive failure to cause loss of data.
- the process to migrate to SWRaid for proxmox is quite well covered in this posting:

http://forum.proxmox.com/threads/838-Install-on-Soft-Raid/page3?p=13652#post13652

- note that it takes a while (wall clock time) due to LVM moves and so forth; but it is very simple process really.

- (Alternately, as it has already been stated - just install debian using debian install media; do your software raid there / during that part of the install process; and add proxmox VE after the fact.)

- additionally I'm tempted to say, that if you can't follow the steps in this process without error or confusion, then you probably shouldn't be using software raid in the first place. You can get a "HCL Supported" hardware raid card for $200 or less, easily (or $50 or less for good-used-working on Ebay if you have a tight budget even; $200 or less for good-new-in-box from Newegg or similar).

- Ultimately though, if developers of ProxVE don't want to do software raid support - that is their decision - which can't be changed by discussion or such. ProxVE is an amazing product, and I'm not going to complain based on their preference and decisions for supported configurations

Just my 2 cents


Tim Chipman


Fortech I.T. Solutions
http://FortechITSolutions.ca

 

[proxymoxy]

Well Dietmar, you should also tell the peope at Distrowach.com about this ;-)

http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=06878

Martin Maurer has announced the release of Proxmox 1.9 "Virtual Environment" edition, a Debian-based distribution designed for running virtual appliances and virtual machines




But I mispoke actually. What I actually wanted to say is, that proxmox can only be installed on one distribution unfortunately.

 

[dietmar]

Well Dietmar, you should also tell the peope at Distrowach.com about this ;-)

I don't really know that you want to talk about. Proxmox is a Debian based distribution, and you can use the Debian installer to install it. You claimed:

Proxmox is (unfortunately) a distribution, that basically means the proxmox installer would have to handle the software raid part

And this is simply wrong.

 

[proxymoxy]

ok, thanks for clarifying.

I thought you meant "proxmox is not a distribution".

What I meant that the installer doesn't include software raid support. But of course it is possible to use software raid (I have done it), but the installer doesn't support it (in fact installation stops) and it is not supported. But I understand why, as mentioned in my previous post.

 

[jollyscots]

Well said Tim.

And I think that closes this thread

 

[fnu]

I'm still the opinion Soft Raid from Linux kernel is not the right way to to go, since it's handling is odd. Yes, CPUs do have a lot of power to handle these things in parallel, well at least you don't go for an Intel Atom or so ...

But the last weeks I pay some time in testing Intel RST2, which is part of Intel's chip series 6 and siblings, starting from H67. The performance and reliability is astonishing and on the same level like my beloved HP SmartArray controllers. I could easily mix complete different HDDs types and vendors and run this combination for weeks, contrary to other fake raid controllers, which are only reliable within the same disk typs. Average CPU consumption is very low, even on high pressure, and the volumes are recognized as one volume from system's start on. Within Linux the RAID compound is automatically handled by device manager, like pure soft raids.

A good base is Intel's DH67BL or compareable, which you can get for around 70-80 Euro bugs. Bargain CPUs are the Celerons G440, G460 and G530, all three convinced me with HyperV, part of "Windows 8 Preview", whereas the power consumption of the G530 is low, of the G4xx is very low. Since G460 has the same price like the G440 and provides additionally EIST & HT (!), it'll be the better choice. There's no need to go for an other Celeron or Pentium, they provide no or just a little more power than the G530. The first "better" interessting CPU is one of the Core iX which provides 2 real cores and 4 threads at all. The SandyBridge graphics is for all desktop CPUs the same, most do have 6 execution units and there is little difference in GPU frequency. A couple of them do provide 12 execution units at same freqeuncy range, which may make a little difference.

Regards
fnu

PS.: Comparison HP SmartArray P400 (256MB) and Intel RST2 (DH67BL, G530, 8GB) with the same disks (2x WD6400AADS) in RAID1.

 

[eugene]

Just do not remove software raid support from any kernel, please.
Debian installer has the possibility of software raid setup - this is enough!!! No need implement a new installer, better focus on real things like virtualization, HA, etc.
Those guys who can't use simplest thing like debian installer can go to hell.

P.S. Have Proxmox 1.x in production on software raid 1/10 > 1 year - works perfect. Thanks for the Proxmox!!!

 

[eugene]

 

[kotakomputer]

(moved to separate comment)