OpenRAID challenge - little off topic
-
OK, before all you VC++ gurus get too exited about seeing this post here - I would like to reach widest technical audience possible. My reasons for posting here are personal and selfish and I’ll delete this post if there are objections from you. I am getting really frustrated with MS RAID 5 implementation on my Widows Advanced Server. Don’t flame me running this OS – I cannot afford troubleshooting MS latest OS and my buggy VC++ code same time! This is not MS bashing article. I am looking for real experts in software RAID technology to help me develop different RAID than is currently available on Windows 2000 Advanced server. I do not want to discuss pro and cons of different RAID methods and hardware (PCI) solutions. I am not interested in Linux solutions. Here is my OpenRAID project spec: 1. RAID 5 with user interface to enable array updates on request. Reason: MS RAID will take over the PC after power failure and cannot be stopped. MS RAID is always working – not required. 2. RAID 5 that would allow building RAID 5 for operating system thus allowing PC to boot from any drive (including USB). Reason: MS RAID does allow OS to be mirrored only – not RAID 5. After OS drive failure the only recovery is to rebuild the OS drive from scratch – too time consuming and scary. (Does it matter what nationality is a foreign disk?) 3. RAID 5 extended over USB or FireWire interface Reason: MS RAID does not work with any external interfaces. (MS reasoning for this is irrelevant) The data redundancy is my primary goal. The speed of the USB or other interface is unimportant. Copy internal drive to external dynamic drive for preventive replacement. Build dynamic USB disk 4. Identify which disk caused the RAID 5 failure. 5. Current RAID is flaky on OS power down during rebuild process and makes system unusable after power failure. I just want :mad:to add new life to the OS technology that did not kept up with the hardware developments. Anybody for a challenge? Thanks for your time. Cheers Vaclav :mad:
-
OK, before all you VC++ gurus get too exited about seeing this post here - I would like to reach widest technical audience possible. My reasons for posting here are personal and selfish and I’ll delete this post if there are objections from you. I am getting really frustrated with MS RAID 5 implementation on my Widows Advanced Server. Don’t flame me running this OS – I cannot afford troubleshooting MS latest OS and my buggy VC++ code same time! This is not MS bashing article. I am looking for real experts in software RAID technology to help me develop different RAID than is currently available on Windows 2000 Advanced server. I do not want to discuss pro and cons of different RAID methods and hardware (PCI) solutions. I am not interested in Linux solutions. Here is my OpenRAID project spec: 1. RAID 5 with user interface to enable array updates on request. Reason: MS RAID will take over the PC after power failure and cannot be stopped. MS RAID is always working – not required. 2. RAID 5 that would allow building RAID 5 for operating system thus allowing PC to boot from any drive (including USB). Reason: MS RAID does allow OS to be mirrored only – not RAID 5. After OS drive failure the only recovery is to rebuild the OS drive from scratch – too time consuming and scary. (Does it matter what nationality is a foreign disk?) 3. RAID 5 extended over USB or FireWire interface Reason: MS RAID does not work with any external interfaces. (MS reasoning for this is irrelevant) The data redundancy is my primary goal. The speed of the USB or other interface is unimportant. Copy internal drive to external dynamic drive for preventive replacement. Build dynamic USB disk 4. Identify which disk caused the RAID 5 failure. 5. Current RAID is flaky on OS power down during rebuild process and makes system unusable after power failure. I just want :mad:to add new life to the OS technology that did not kept up with the hardware developments. Anybody for a challenge? Thanks for your time. Cheers Vaclav :mad:
-
Could you use a Virtual Machine to achieve this. The type of disks and their location can be divorced from the underlying hardware e.g. you can create a scsi which actually resides on external firewire drive.