HP xw4400 Workstation - Manual (Page 25)

6 Installing and configuring SAS
hardware RAID
Introduction
This chapter provides an overview of hardware RAID solutions for HP workstations running the Linux
operating system. It assumes a basic understanding of workstation hardware, filesystems, and the Linux
operating system. It covers an overview of hardware RAID solutions, the differences between software
and hardware RAID offerings, and information regarding the configuration of hardware RAID on HP
Linux Workstations.
There are different levels of hardware RAID available. Not all of them are supported options for HP
Linux Workstations.
● Hardware-assisted RAID is a step up from software RAID, but is not considered true hardware
RAID. Hardware-assisted SAS RAID uses the LSI mptsas driver already present in the Linux kernel.
It is provided by the LSI 3041E plug-in card on the HP Z400, Z600, xw4x00, and xw6x00
Workstation series and by the LSI 1064 and 1068 controllers on the motherboard on the HP
Z800, xw8000, and xw9000 Workstation series.
● True hardware RAID, also known as raid-on-chip, or ROC, makes use of a dedicated RAID
processor. It is also supported by the megaraid_sas driver in the OS. It is provided by the LSI
8344ELP and 8888ELP plug-in cards on the HP xw8x00 and xw9x00 family platforms, and the
LSI 8888ELP and 9260-8i cards on appropriate models of the Z-series machines. SAS drives are
the only drives supported for use with RAID on HP Linux Workstations.
● SATA RAID requires use of the dmraid interface because there are no current Linux drivers for the
Intel ICH SATA RAID controllers found in HP workstations. The dmraid interface is included in all
Linux distributions.
Introduction 21