NetBSD GSoC 2026 Improving RAIDframe
blog.netbsd.orgReading raid(4) [1] it looks like RAID-6 is not supported: I would think with drives sizes being what they are in recent years (decades?), protection from a double-fault during a re-stripe would be important. Or is RAIDframe mostly supposed to be used for 'smaller situations' (like a boot drive)?
[1] https://man.netbsd.org/raid.4
I first ran across the "RAID-5 is dead" 'meme' almost twenty years ago, with concerns that when drives reached >2TB you get higher chances of failed rebuilds due to BER / UER rates:
* https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-20...
See also 2013 follow-up:
With ZFS support in NetBSD, I would expect one would use ZFS for bigger storage situations, keeping RAIDframe for special cases (e.g. boot/root)
Yes, I didn't get a chance to check NetBSD's support or not for ZFS by the time you posted your reply:
* https://man.netbsd.org/zfs.8
FreeBSD's graid(8) does appear to RAID6:
I say this everytime I see a NetBSD post but they still have tier 2 ports for Dreamcast, Sony NET WORK STATION, Zaurus, Sharp x68000, among many many others that I'm less familiar with.
It's why it doesn't really bother me when, say, the Linux kernel drops hardware support for older architectures.
Much respect to the NetBSD and port maintainers.
Especially since the Linux kernel dropping support usually happens years after distributions already have, so it would be quite difficult to run actual software on such hardware anyway. Whereas NetBSD is an entire OS.
I've said it before and I've said it again - I think it's best for everyone if mainstream Linux and FreeBSD chase the best performance and latest features, while NetBSD aims (and specializes) at providing a stable, modern, reliable OS for these legacy platforms.