[OmniOS-discuss] root pool on HP SmartArray: any cons?

[Dan McDonald]

> On Jul 24, 2015, at 5:33 AM, Cal Sawyer <cal-s at blue-bolt.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi
> 
> I'm building a new head on an HP dl360 G6 running r151014 that will front a large storage pool.  The storage pool itself will be connected (properly) via an LSI 9207 HBA
> 
> I've installed OmniOS's root pool on top of the SmartArray's p410i mirrored LV mainly because it was there already and i like to use hardware RAID whenever i can

Okay, G6 is supported.  I'd almost read that as "G9", which isn't yet, but should be coming.

> Are there any issues associated with running the root pool on top of hardware RAID?

You really are *reducing* your reliability by trusting hardware RAID.  If a disk fails with hw-RAID, you're beholding to the (closed source) board firmware to do the right thing and recover.  A disk fails on ZFS, you can detach it, remove it, replace it, and resilver it without any machine downtime.

We discourage our paying support customers from using hardware RAID in any situation.

Dan