Software RAID1 for OS, necessary?
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I have 2 identical new Intel 545s 256GB SSD drives.
Should I use the built-in Intel software raid on my SuperMicro A1SRI-2358F motherboard to create a RAID1 mirror for the OS or is just 1 drive sufficient?
This will be a primary gateway at at remote office location, stability/up-time is important.
thanks!
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You'd be better off with a ZFS mirror. It's simple to set up during install.
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I mis-spoke in my OP, the mirror setup via the pfSense install is what I was referring to.
Would be installing 2.4 stable build. -
Do not use the provided BIOS RAID configurator or any of the provided utilities for it. Instead use ZFS mirror as suggested, ZFS does poorly if it doesn't have a direct access to the disks used. In fact a configuration where ZFS is used on top of a software pseudo RAID defeats most of advantages ZFS offers.
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SuperMicro A1SRI-2358F + Chassis CSE-101i isn't really "made" for 2x HDs, but the HD bay does easily fit 2 SSD atop each other.
But, since I'm using external pwr supply, the mobo only has 1 male molex connector for HD pwr. So, I had to order female molex to 2x SATA power for the SSDs. Wasn't easy to find female molex to SATA power, but finally got 1 in today.Got everything up and running with Auto Install (ZFS), very easy. Thanks for recommendations everyone.
pool: pfSenseZFSpool state: ONLINE scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0h0m with 0 errors on Thu Dec 7 07:01:02 2017 config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM pfSenseZFSpool ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0 ada0p3 ONLINE 0 0 0 ada1p3 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors