On-board v software RAID1

Hi, We have a Dell T110 server which has on-board PERC RAID controller. We are not using this but are instead using software RIAD 1 under Ubuntu Server 10.04LTS

We have not disabled the PERC RAID, just left it unconfigured... would this cause any problems?

Problems? Not likely. Although it's much more advisable to use the hardware RAID Controller instead. It uses a separate processor to handle the HDD's instead of relying on your main CPU.

Thanks Adam,

It wasn't me who set it up... I would have used the on-board.

Thankfully the server isn't under much load.

I just wondered as there have been some strange problems since it was put into service and that RAID configuration was the only odd thing I can think of. It's running Samba as a domain controller and decided to 'lose' a couple of the user's profiles this morning!

I hear you on the "I didn't do it" line. Seems all too often that happens; both in and outside of technical things. You should still be able to do a checkdisk and use other tools to verify the disks are OK. It's POSSIBLE, albeit unlikely, that all disks in the cluster failed in such a way they have corrupt sectors. Worth checking perhaps, but I wouldn't bet money on it.

thats weird, ...
my guess would be software error or user error

i had software raid for on linux for long time , and didnt see any problems so far on it ..