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RAID


PincoPalla

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Hello everyone, I have a particular question to ask, to always keep in mind that I am not a super expert in the IT world so I would never ask questions that seem stupid to the most experienced but that for a person who does not know many things are normal; this is the question, what RAID does, I try to explain myself better, RAID does the s.o. (DSM) or the s.o. relies on a hardware component which in turn does it ??? I ask because I see that many motherboards do this, now almost all of them (probably their firmware provides for it), and since I am about to build one, I wanted to know if the choice of buying a motherboard should fall on one of these. I also see that some models of synology do not include RAID in SHR, which would suggest that it is the s.o. to do this. Thanks

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First off, RAID is an algorithm that takes several different forms involving data redundancy.  So "hardware" is implementing this algorithm just like software.

 

If a motherboard provides RAID services, it is doing so with CPU in the BIOS.  This isn't any more "hardware" than DSM.  If a dedicated RAID controller is providing services, it is doing so with a microcontroller or ASIC.

 

A long time ago, CPUs were not fast and the computational load was such that the dedicated hardware approach was faster/better.  Those days are long past and now a modest CPU can more than keep up with a typical RAID workload at network interface speeds.  Also, a "software" approach like is done with DSM allows much more sophisticated error management, data recovery and additional features like we can achieve with btrfs.

 

Therefore, for XPEnology and DSM, to achieve best functionality, performance and reliability, it is best NOT to use RAID services from "hardware" but provide direct access to disks to the DSM operating system.

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Thanks Flyride, I think I understand, I was looking for a post to which you answered on the functionality of expenology compared to the DSM but as usual I can't find it .... !!! I ask you the question here, the DSM expenology can run even with memory NOT ECC ??? furthermore, if a UPS is connected via USB, it is possible to configure the automatic shutdown in case of prolonged power failure ??? Thanks

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23 minutes ago, PincoPalla said:

the DSM expenology can run even with memory NOT ECC

ECC is a hardware memory correction scheme that is implemented by the RAM and motherboard, and is not functionally visible to operating systems.  So, yes, the memory type does not matter to DSM.  ECC is definitely better, but not supported by most non-server motherboards.  I believe we will soon see ECC (again) become ubiquitous, as memory density is getting so high that error frequency is becoming statistically significant.

 

24 minutes ago, PincoPalla said:

if a UPS is connected via USB, it is possible to configure the automatic shutdown in case of prolonged power failure

Yes, that is DSM core functionality (Linux "NUT") and works fine when running DSM with XPe.

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