New Release of RAIDIX ERA, High Performance Software RAID

The newest RAIDIX ERA 3.4 introduces features that will have a significant impact on the fault tolerance and performance of software-defined storage systems on flash drives.

Improved automatic error correcting in case of write hole

Write hole is a situation where data or checksums on a RAID are inconsistent, which is left undetected by the storage system.

In this case, a RAID drive failure may result in data loss. This may occur during asynchronous writes on a checksum RAID (e.g. RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 50, etc.) in case of a system failure (due to, most often, power loss). Even though the data loss situations were rare, users preferred to invest in extra hardware to prevent this from happening.

The new RAIDIX ERA 3.4 protects data from write hole effects by running recalculation of checksums after a system failure, thus eliminating inconsistency. The new resync function is enabled by default on all RAIDs where write hole is possible.

I/O errors monitoring

The more drives, the higher the likelihood that drives will fail. RAIDIX ERA 3.4 detects corrupt drives and sends notifications to the user via email or interface so that the administrator can replace the drives in a timely manner. Also in RAIDIX ERA 3.4 users can configure automatic drive replacement.

Support of NVMe drives connected via multiple paths

Users are now able to use NVMe devices via multiple routes thanks to the DM Multipathing support. The new feature tunes workload balancing and increases fault tolerance.

Also, the software development process at RAIDIX includes mandatory ‘synching’ with the updates of Linux kernel. As a result, RAIDIX ERA 3.4 demonstrates full performance on distributions based on the latest kernel version.

Rufat Ibragimov, product owner, commented on the release:

‘ERA just got more performance and flexibility. Now users can enjoy DM multipath support, so the module can be deployed in disaggregated environments — by connecting NVMe drives over the network — which will boost IOps. Plus, It’s safe to say that if a power outage occurs, with RAIDIX ERA 3.4 the risk of data loss is much, much lower, because the new resync function solves the write hole problem’.