Overland Storage SnapServer Administrator's Manual page 239

SnapServer/GuardianOS 7.5 Administrator's Guide
Choosing DynamicRAID or Traditional RAID
Feature
I need a simple, scalable, flexible RAID solution that takes little or no
effort to manage.
I need to easily add more storage capacity as needed.
I need to be able to change the parity level over time.
I need to be able to adjust volume size as needed.
I need to be able to optimize parity based on the number of drives
inserted into the system.
I need the SnapServer to configure and manage the RAID array size
and parity.
I need to manually configure the RAID array.
I need to manually tune my storage system for specific needs, such
as RAID levels and/or storage types.
I need user or group quotas.
I need to mix different drives in the same chassis, and then group
these different drives together to make a homogeneous RAID.
I need the filesystem to span multiple chassis.
I need local and global spares.
I need to do snapshot rollbacks.
Features Comparisons: DynamicRAID and Traditional RAID
The following table compares the features of these two RAID types:
Feature
RAID Levels
RAID Creation
RAID Expansion
Mixed Drive
Capacities
Mixed Drive Types
Volumes
10400541-001
DynamicRAID
Single- or dual-parity options that can be
changed dynamically.
Automatic after selection of parity.
Snapshot space is configured by the
user.
Can be expanded by adding drives to the
SnapServer.
Additional capacity on larger drives can
be utilized within the constraints of
single- or dual parity protection.
Additional capacity on larger drives can
be utilized if there are enough larger
drives to satisfy the parity configuration
of DynamicRAID.
All drives in a given Storage Pool must
be the same type of drive (for example,
SAS 15K).
Volumes consume space directly from
the storage pool as data is placed on the
volume, and allocated as needed.
©2008-14 Overland Storage, Inc.
A - DynamicRAID Overview
DynamicRAID Traditional RAID
X
X
X
X
X
X
Traditional RAID
Manually created RAID sets 0, 1, 5, 6, or
10. Must delete and recreate to change.
Manual selection of drives, RAID set
level, and snapshot space.
Can be grouped with other RAIDs to
increase the space available to volumes.
Only the capacity equivalent to the
smallest drive is used on each drive in
the RAID set.
Different types of drives can be mixed in
a head unit or expansion unit (using
different RAID sets and volumes).
Volumes allocate from the RAID upon
creation of the volume, and volumes
must be manually grown to increase
space for data as needed.
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
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