As discussed in the previous section on serviceability, some of
the key differences in managing software- and hardware-based RAID
solutions center on the ease of identifying and reporting errors.
Hardware-based solutions typically offer more sophisticated
management software features such as alerts color-coded by
severity, e-mail, fax or pager notification of errors, and remote
management of multiple RAID installations.
But this is just the beginning. Graphical user interfaces
(GUIs) that employ a Windows-like look and feel with pop-down
menus, property tabs, physical and logical views in drill-down
Windows_ Explorer-type tree structures, and detailed views can
make a huge difference in the ease of managing your storage.
Not all RAID solutions offer GUIs. Unlike software-based
solutions, hardware-based RAID solutions allow monitoring and
management of RAID configurations on multiple operating systems
such as Windows NT and Novell Netware. The ability of
hardware-based solutions to remotely manage RAID storage means
that you can initialize new arrays and reactivate offline arrays
without ever leaving your desk.
More sophisticated hardware-based RAID management
implementations support preventive maintenance activities such as
monitoring card, drive and enclosure fan and temperature status
but also testing hot spares, verifying parity information, and
reconstructing the information on a failed drive. Some even allow
you to schedule these activities, thus eliminating the need for
manual intervention and minimizing impact on server performance.
Another distinguishing feature among RAID management
implementations is the ability to poll servers, networks and
non-RAID configurations, so that downtime conditions are more
quickly detected and isolated.
