raid controller recommendation

[Frank Warnke]

Duh on my part.  Sorry for the double post. I receive the batch digest
and sent this message with the wrong subject.

On Thu, 2003-12-11 at 21:21, Xose Vazquez Perez wrote:

> Jesse Keating wrote:
> 
> > EEEK!  Danger Will Robinson!  Do _NOT_ use any 3ware card older than
the 
> > 7xxx series.  Slow, horrible firmware, disk incompatibilities, lost 
> > arrays, um...
> > 
> > Yeah, 3ware really didn't come into their own until the 7xxx series.
> 
> And be careful with IDE disk/controllers and journal fs. They are not
> recommended for DB usage.
> 
> 

Could you elaborate on why "IDE disk/controllers and journal fs are not
recommended for DB usage"?  Does "DB" mean database?  Does this blanket
statement cover ATA RAID controllers as well?  Is this a performance
issue or a data loss issue? 

I have over 10 test/development servers in-house that use single IDE
hard drives that run databases on ReiserFS and EXT3 without any data
loss.  Performance is sufficient for their purpose.

I also have over 40 servers in the field using either Dell(LSI) or 3ware
PATA/SATA hardware RAID controllers (RAID5) running databases on
ReiserFS and EXT3 filesystems.  Many have seen close to two years of
service and they have been problem free.  Our customers are very pleased
with the performance of the database access.

People, including myself, come here to learn and when we can, add our
experiences.  Please be careful with your opinions, there are a lot of
people viewing this list because they assume you have the answers based
on experience.  It would help a viewer of this thread to see a reference
or two to substantiate your claim.  If I have done a customer a
disservice in the configuration of their servers, I want to remedy it
immediately.

Thanks,
Frank