Voom Instant Save Instant Restore™ (ISIR)

[garethace]

Have you any experience of software raid Jeff? Or the types of specific applications where it rocks the world?

 

I think, that AUtoCAD is one that improves big time with Raid.

[Jeff Mottle]

Well this app, is not true RAID. I only said that becuase it mirrors like RAID does, but does not have the speed increase as it's still only one drive. On the show last night they featured a software that did a similar thing, but it took a 15-20% performace from the workstation!

[garethace]

You are aware that Raid or any kind, even hardware Raid 5, is only basically at its very best and most productive - in situtations where downtime is not an option. Think about situation where that is the case, like a web site for instance, and that is where Raid becomes most useful.

 

Now why would a home user or somebody, want to have a high level of uptime - to that extreme.

 

In nearly 90% of cases, even critical servers, the process of restoring information from a tape set, taking a few minutes or an hour or two - is proven to be more reliable than any form of Raid technology.

 

OT...

 

The hot swapping thing, combined with Raid 5 - represents the only true real form of Raid 'functionality' per se. Raid 1 just wastes valuble SCSI storage space - for the sake of one more SCSI drive, you could have a RAID 5 set up with a hardware Raid setup and low cpu usage.

 

(in tough server environments, or even prolonged power-up of workstations over months, SCSI is really the only choice, or maybe WD Raptors, which are expensive anyhow)

 

Another thing, one should know about SCSI/IDE - is IDE can only have one device 'talk' at one time. Therefore, again SCSI is the only choice in circumstances where many devices/drives need to work simultaneously.

 

PS. Mirror Raid 1 using IDE can rock too for AutoCAD, since if you set the stripe size big enough, the read speeds of the pair, or 3 or 4 IDE drives increase quite alot. Of course writing is a bit slower, but on a stable system, going file save too often isn't a huge difficulty.

[Jeff Mottle]

There is one major downside to this system...as it is still only one drive, if you lose the drive, you also loose your backups. eek.

 

It is a good option for restore points and if you corrupt a system as you have that restore point.

 

As an aside, the CGA server is running a RAID 1 IDE setup, but it also backed up to an exernal RAID array daily, which is then also backed up to tape and taken off site.

[garethace]

Yeah, i would only use CG Architect now over a broadband connection. I used to use CG Architect on the 56k connection at home, but F*** what a mess.

 

That is why i spend an awful lot more time at aceshardware while i am at home, since it flies with all the compression optimisations etc, they have managed to do, plus the pages are far less complex.

[Jeff Mottle]

Check this out. I saw it on TechTV tonight. It's a PCI card that attaches in between your system harddrive and your MB. It create a pseduo RAID1 with a single drive. Basically it allows you to have an exact realtime mirror of your syetem, however it is at the expense of 50% of your harddrive space. Cool non the less. .

 

http://www.voomtech.com/index.htm