{"id":12771,"date":"2018-12-11T14:52:26","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T19:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hostdime.com\/blog\/?p=12771"},"modified":"2018-12-19T10:27:56","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T15:27:56","slug":"bbu-vs-cachevault-vs-cachecade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hostdime.com\/blog\/bbu-vs-cachevault-vs-cachecade\/","title":{"rendered":"BBU vs CacheVault vs CacheCade: Which RAID Add-On is Right for You?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If you’re reading this, you’re probably familiar with RAID, the method that combines multiple disks for increased performance and hardware failover. RAID options are available with the purchase of any HostDime dedicated server<\/a>. Use our RAID calculator<\/a> to compare RAID drive sizes to increase your server’s performance!<\/p>\n

While RAID solutions excel at data storage and protection, you have to sacrifice a little bit of speed. To combat this and keep things running fast, there’s configuration options like BBU, CacheVault, and CacheCade. Let’s dive into the benefits of each.
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Battery Backup Unit (BBU)<\/h2>\n

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Let’s present a nightmare scenario. Your dedicated server loses power before changes have left the cache and committed to disk, resulting in corrupted data. The contents on the RAID card become unrecoverable and you may not know what files are damaged. <\/p>\n

To help protect against this data loss, we offer customers a BBU at $20 a month<\/a>. A BBU is a physical lithium ion batter that you connect to the RAID controller.<\/p>\n

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The BBU’s job is to remember the data that hasn’t been synced to disk yet, usually up to 72 hours without power. When the machine powers back up, the BBU will write the cache contents on the disk.<\/p>\n

If your \u201cwrite cache\u201d option is set to \u201cwrite through\u201d or \u201coff\u201d, then you should be fine without a BBU on your raid card. The downside to having \u201cwrite cache\u201d turned off is the RAID performance will be sub-optimal. Many RAID cards will have the write cache setting \u201con\u201d only if the BBU is installed. This is very important for users who frequently save their database from certain types of corruption or need high data integrity.
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CacheVault Cache Protection<\/h2>\n

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Similar to BBUs, CacheVault is a physical module that connects to RAID controllers. It does exactly what the BBU does, but is a newer technology that enables other features.<\/p>\n

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On the RAID controller, when write-back mode is enabled, data is temporarily stored in DRAM until the RAID controller writes that information to the disk. As discussed above, if power fails without a BBU the data is lost but if power fails with a BBU it’s stored in DRAM for up to 72 hours.<\/p>\n

What makes CacheVault superior in this aspect is the ability for that data to be moved from DRAM to NAND flash. When the data is moved from DRAM to NAND flash, it can be stored there for up to 3 years! When the server turns back on, data is moved from NAND back to DRAM and then written to the disks. Operations then continue as if nothing ever happened. Here’s a video that goes into more detail:<\/p>\n