Announcing FlexRAID Standards (TM)

[Brahim]

FlexRAID Standards™

FlexRAID Standards™ is now in beta testing: http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php/topic,5217.0.html

[S_F]

How's the read and write performance when compared to a hardware RAID or a Linux software RAID solution?

What about data integrity?

Will there be a discount for those of us who purchased one of the other products?

[Brahim]

On Windows, FlexRAID Standards™ blows everything out of the water as far as performance and features.

On Linux, things are on part performance wise and fairly close feature wise.
FlexRAID Standards™ is almost like LVM and MD RAID combined into one sweet easy to configure and manage package.

You can achieve many of the things FlexRAID Standards™ does on Linux by combining multiple software, but that's also where the value of FlexRAID comes in: one software that gives you everything you need without having to be a Linux guru.

Taking on Linux RAID is a tall order to say the least and is more of a happenstance rather than something I set off to do.
Nevertheless, there are a few things that FlexRAID Standards™ does better on Linux. We will discuss some of those things after the beta release.

And yes, there will be a discount for existing customers wishing to also run or switch to FlexRAID Standards™.

[wileecoyote]

On Windows, FlexRAID Standards™ blows everything out of the water as far as performance and features.

Brahim, you mentioned in the first post t-raid was not included in FlexRAID Standards. So does this statement mean FlexRAID Standards will perform better than t-raid? (I'm not being a smart-ass, I really want to know...)

[Brahim]

Brahim, you mentioned in the first post t-raid was not included in FlexRAID Standards. So does this statement mean FlexRAID Standards will perform better than t-raid? (I'm not being a smart-ass, I really want to know...)

That comparison was against standard RAID implementations and not against tRAID or RAID-F.

Transparent RAID has many features you won't find in FlexRAID Standards™.
For most users, I find Transparent RAID to be the better RAID system over standard RAID implementations including FlexRAID Standards™.

As standard RAID tends to stripe data for performance, yes, the performance of standard RAID will typically be better. In exchange for that performance though, you will lose a lot of flexibility such as:
- if you lose a disk beyond the tolerance level, you will lose ALL your data on the RAID
- there is no support for disks with existing data except for RAID 1
- you cannot access the data on the individual disks as the data is striped
- you lose energy efficiency as all the disks are spun during reads and writes operations
- no easy RAID Expansion or Contraction (though FlexRAID Standards™ does provide a RAID migration feature)

RAID-F and tRAID were created because there is a lot of limitations with standard RAID with the only benefit being better performance.
For the typical home user, RAID-F and tRAID provide all the performance needed with none of the limitations.
If accessing the storage from the network, RAID-F or tRAID + Landing Disk will typically saturate a Gigabit connection. So, having a particularly fast back-end storage here makes little difference.

FlexRAID Standards™ is being released because there are still good use cases for it (all of them relate to performance needs):
- Faster video editing storage
- Faster database server storage
- Faster web server storage
- Storage for high concurrency workloads
- Etc.

Outside of RAID 1 (which will be included in tRAID btw), the other RAID implementations are mostly of interest to businesses with heavy workloads or to home users that like nice performance benchmarks.

[facke02]

Brahim, congratulations on the new product. Sounds very interesting for sure. If you need beta testers I might be interested.

What does this new product do or not do for the RAID-F re-design you talked about earlier this year?  I'm going to assume this will be your third product offering?

Good luck and looking forward to more details coming from you.

[Brahim]

Brahim, congratulations on the new product. Sounds very interesting for sure. If you need beta testers I might be interested.

What does this new product do or not do for the RAID-F re-design you talked about earlier this year?  I'm going to assume this will be your third product offering?

Good luck and looking forward to more details coming from you.

Hey Ken, nice to see you pop back.

The RAID-F redesign is still ongoing. RAID-F is extremely important to the FlexRAID family, which is why extra time is taken to properly redesign it.

FlexRAID Standards™ is indeed a new product that effectively closes the loop.
RAID-F and tRAID heavily criticize standard RAID while FlexRAID Standards™ is our implementation of standard RAID with some nifty features. Call it sibling rivalry. 

This is really to say that we have nothing against standard RAID other than that it is best suited for some deployments but not all. There was a void that RAID-F and tRAID are now filling. Now, we are closing the loop such that no matter what your needs are, FlexRAID has the solution for you.

[wileecoyote]

That comparison was against standard RAID implementations and not against tRAID or RAID-F.

Transparent RAID has many features you won't find in FlexRAID Standards™.
For most users, I find Transparent RAID to be the better RAID system over standard RAID implementations including FlexRAID Standards™.

As standard RAID tends to stripe data for performance, yes, the performance of standard RAID will typically be better. In exchange for that performance though, you will lose a lot of flexibility such as:
- if you lose a disk beyond the tolerance level, you will lose ALL your data on the RAID
- there is no support for disks with existing data except for RAID 1
- you cannot access the data on the individual disks as the data is striped
- you lose energy efficiency as all the disks are spun during reads and writes operations
- no easy RAID Expansion or Contraction (though FlexRAID Standards™ does provide a RAID migration feature)

RAID-F and tRAID were created because there is a lot of limitations with standard RAID with the only benefit being better performance.
For the typical home user, RAID-F and tRAID provide all the performance needed with none of the limitations.
If accessing the storage from the network, RAID-F or tRAID + Landing Disk will typically saturate a Gigabit connection. So, having a particularly fast back-end storage here makes little difference.

FlexRAID Standards™ is being released because there are still good use cases for it (all of them relate to performance needs):
- Faster video editing storage
- Faster database server storage
- Faster web server storage
- Storage for high concurrency workloads
- Etc.

Outside of RAID 1 (which will be included in tRAID btw), the other RAID implementations are mostly of interest to businesses with heavy workloads or to home users that like nice performance benchmarks.

Thank you for the explanation, I understand the distinction now. I only asked as I am VERY happy with your t-raid product and couldn't imagine a product that was better. 

I would also like to congratulate you and wish you good luck on the new product.

[vletroye]

I am impressed how fast your deliver new features and products.. Wow !

For the typical home user, RAID-F and tRAID provide all the performance needed with none of the limitations.
If accessing the storage from the network, RAID-F or tRAID + Landing Disk will typically saturate a Gigabit connection. So, having a particularly fast back-end storage here makes little difference.

100% agree... as far as I am concerned, tRaid is definitively the product I need for my backup server....
And regarding all the features in Raid-F (and now in tRAID), I really have to tell I never been so happy than when I discovered FlexRaid to replace my traditional RAID :p
- No more issue to add disks in my array (with existing data),
- no more issue when I have to replace a disk controller (I can take any, even if not "compatible" with the RAID feature of the previous one),
- and disks can be moved temporally into another machine if really required (Ex.: Dying Motherboard) and data will be readable immediately, even without installing Flexraid...


But still, a Standard RAID could indeed be interesting for my Desktop PC where I have also a few disks in RAID (whose content is backup-ed in tRAID). I have never used anything else than RAID 1 on my Desktop because I didn't want to depend on a specific chipset to access my data (in case the RAID controller or the MB dies). With FlexRAID Standard, I could create a RAID 5 to improve the performances without being afraid that my Motherboard dies 

I only need now a larger case for my Desktop

V.

[Brahim]

@vletroye
Options, options, options...

I am personally excited about the RAID 1 with N-way mirroring feature. It provides RAID 0 like performance on reads and the performance of a single disk on writes.
I want it for my hosted virtualization QA box (VMware Workstation/VirtualBox box). Right now, that box runs Windows RAID 1 just fine, but I want the improved read performance.
I could go RAID 10 for improved write performance, but then I would lose some flexibility compared to RAID 1.

[maintanosgr]

I'm really excited to see that you are developing such a solution because it's exactly what I'm looking for. Hopefully we'll be able to test your product soon

[Brahim]

Update
Testing all the various RAID layouts and configuration options is proving far more time consuming than originally planned.
The release is quietly being pushed to October 31st.

[facke02]

Hey Brahim,

Any updates that you can share?

Thanks

[Brahim]

Hey Ken,

FlexRAID Standards™ is functionally ready. The hold up has to do with product differentiation.
To simplify development and unify things, I made tRAID and FlexRAID Standards share the same binaries. However, this creates some confusion on both product differentiation and licensing front that I need to resolve.
I have been scratching my head for over a months now, but I still remain undecided on the approach to take.

I will just release the beta next week and work on these logistics later.

[maintanosgr]

So where can we download the beta for Flexraid Standards?