Raidix ERA V.3.4 RAID Software for Fault Tolerance and Performance of SDS Systems on Flash Drives

The ERA 3.4 software from Raidix International AG introduces features that will have an impact on the fault tolerance and performance of SDS systems on flash drives.

Improved automatic error correcting in case of write hole
Write hole is a situation where data or check sums 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 (such as 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.

ERA 3.4 protects data from write hole effects by running recalculation of checksums after a system failure, thus eliminating inconsistency. The new re-sync 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. 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 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 the company’s solution includes mandatory ‘synching’ with the updates of Linux kernel. As a result, ERA 3.4 demonstrates full performance on distributions based on the latest kernel version.

Rufat Ibragimov, product owner, commented: “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 IO/s. Plus, It’s safe to say that if a power outage occurs, with Raidix ERA 3.4 the risk of data loss is even lower than before, because the new resync function solves the write hole problem.“

Resources:
ERA What’s new in 3.4.0
ERA leaflet   
ERA Advanced All Flash solution     
ERA system requirements   
ERA installation guide