Software RAID 10 on Linux
- by vpetersson
For a long time, I've been thinking about switching to RAID 10 on a few servers. Now that Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is live, it's time for an upgrade. The servers I'm using are HP Proliant ML115 (very good value). It has four internal 3.5" slots. I'm currently using one drive for the system and a RAID5 array (software) for the remaining three disks.
The problem is that this creates a single-point-of-failure on the boot drive. Hence I'd like to switch to a RAID10 array, as it would give me both better I/O performance and more reliability. The problem is only that good controller cards that supports RAID10 (such as 3Ware) cost almost as much as the server itself. Moreover software-RAID10 does not seem to work very well with Grub.
What is your advice? Should I just keep running RAID5? Have anyone been able to successfully install a software RAID10 without boot issues?